Child and 2 women ‘crushed to death’ during France to UK sea crossing

A 10-year-old child and two women died on Monday on the treacherous and illegal migration route across the English Channel from France, apparently trampled to death on a packed boat, French authorities said.

The dinghy left the area of Sangatte in northern France at around 5.15am carrying 105 people, local prefect François Xavier Lauch said.

The boat ran into difficulty with its passengers asking for help, authorities said.

They called rescue services at around 8am when they were some six kilometres (nearly four miles) off the coast, Lauch added.

Two women in their thirties and a 10-year-old boy who were believed to be Eritrean died, seemingly in a crush as the dinghy was carrying too many people, he said.

Inflatable boats attempt the dangerous crossing after picking up people from the beaches of northern France, who wade into the sea to clamber aboard.

A French maritime rescue boat took aboard 105 people, the maritime prefecture said in a statement.

The child and the two women were declared dead by an intensive care team that was helicoptered aboard, it said.

The women were believed to be in their 30s, the regional government said in a separate statement.

“According to the initial findings of the investigation, it appears the deaths were caused by a stampede. The precise circumstances of the tragedy will, however, have to be established by the judicial investigation,” led by a prosecutor in the northern French port of Boulogne, the statement said.

Nine other people required medical treatment, it said.

France has long been a staging post for asylum seekers without visas hoping to cross the sea to Britain.

They pay smugglers thousands of dollars to board unstable and often overcrowded rubber dinghies to make the journey across one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.