More dead as migrant boat goes down in Channel

French officials say at least eight people died on Saturday night when a boat sank off the coast of the Pas-de-Calais region in the north of France, attempting to cross the English Channel to the United Kingdom.

The incident comes less than two weeks after another boat of migrants attempting the trip sank, claiming at least 12 lives in the deadliest incident in the seaway so far this year.

The boat in the latest incident had around 60 people on board, from countries including Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Coast guard officials said it was reported to be in difficulty near the French coastal town of Ambleteuse, in a position where they could not offer assistance from the sea.

It came apart after being driven onto rocks, and emergency services tended to 53 people and confirmed eight deaths.

Since leaving the European Union, the UK has no arrangement to return migrants to France, from where so many of them make their crossing, as it is the closest point between the UK and mainland Europe.

Since this year, it is estimated that more than 21,000 people have tried to cross in small, often dangerously overcrowded and unseaworthy boats, and there have been more than 30 deaths.

In the 24 hours from Friday to Saturday night, French coast guards recovered 200 people off the coast of Calais, with the highest number in a single incident being 61. On Saturday alone, 18 attempted boat launches were observed.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the BBC that he had seen the "awful sort of rubber dinghies that people are coming across the Channel with, many of them, of course, not able to make it in these contraptions".

The government has said the focus of its efforts to get to grips with the issue will be to target the people-smuggling gangs who run the boats. Lammy added that it had been "discussing how we go after those gangs, in cooperation upstream with other European partners".

On Monday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to be in Italy, the country that has the most migrant arrivals in the EU. Lammy said Italy's handling of the crisis, which includes an agreement with Albania for the temporarily housing of asylum claimants, would be on the agenda when Starmer met Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

But a Home Office source later said that Britain exploring a similar setup involving another country "is not something we are working on", to avoid any confusion over government policy.

Enver Solomon, CEO of London-based charity Refugee Council, said it was a mistake to think that rule enforcement was the only solution to the ongoing crisis that has led to so many deaths.

"People are being forced into the arms of smugglers because they are desperate, fleeing violence and persecution in countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan in search of safety," he told The Guardian newspaper.

"Smugglers will respond to tougher policing by making these refugees take bigger risks, with more perilous crossing points and more crowded boats."