Six people have died this Saturday in an incident with at least one boat loaded with migrants while crossing the English Channel bound for the United Kingdom. The French authorities confirmed this morning that six individuals were transferred by helicopter to a hospital in Calais and the BBC publishes that all have died.
It is believed that the serious incident occurred when an outboard carrying foreigners to the south of England, where they had applied for asylum, sank. Other sources indicated that several boats tried to make the crossing almost simultaneously from coastal enclaves in northern France in the early hours of Saturday.
British and French border and marine forces participated in the rescue operation, which rescued some 50 migrants in Canal waters, according to media from both countries.
More than 15,800 people have made the dangerous crossing of the English Channel, in small boats, so far this year. The symbolic mark of 100,000 migrants arriving in the United Kingdom by this irregular route since 2018, when the British Government began to register the data, was crossed on Friday.
That same day, the detection of legionella bacteria in the Bibby Stockholm water system was confirmed, prompting Interior to temporarily close the floating prison as a place to house asylum seekers while their cases are processed.