Eight people died overnight trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French regional authorities have said, as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the government could follow Italy’s lead and process asylum claimants in a third country.
The French maritime prefecture said 59 people were onboard the boat, which got into difficulty off the coast of France, and 51 of them were rescued. An investigation has been opened by the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office.
A 10-month-old baby was among those taken to hospital with suspected hypothermia after the boat ran aground near Ambleteuse at about 1.15am on Sunday. All those who died were adult men.
Responding to the reports, Lammy told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that the government has been “discussing how we go after those gangs, in cooperation upstream with other European partners”.
Keir Starmer will be in Italy on Monday for talks with the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, about her efforts to tackle the problem “and the work they have done, particularly, with Albania”.
Lammy said: “They have a comprehensive scheme with Albania understanding that [the] Albania route, as well as the Channel and the southern Mediterranean, are routes which migrants use. So of course, because it has reduced the numbers, we are interested in discussing with Italy the schemes they have developed, not just with Albania.”
But in a sign of government confusion over the issue, a Home Office source indicated that Lammy’s claim of a possible third-party scheme was not government policy.
“It is not something we are working on,” the source said, adding that Italy’s plan to process asylum seekers in Albania could not be seen as having reduced the numbers because it was not fully operational yet.
Italy, which receives the most migrant arrivals in the EU, opened the first of two planned camps in neighbouring Albania in August but has not yet sent people there. People will start to arrive at the camps only once both are open and operational.
Starmer has said he is interested in the rollout of the policy, under which Albania will accept asylum seekers on Italy’s behalf while their claims are processed.
The Pas-de-Calais prefecture said the deaths in the Channel overnight occurred off Ambleteuse in northern France. “Several migrants lost their lives,” a spokesperson said.
Jacques Billant, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais, said the boat was “clearly torn on the rocks”. Those onboard included people from Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan and Egypt. Some survivors were taken to hospitals in Calais and Boulogne.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said it would be “unforgivable” to treat the frequency and scale of loss of life with a sense that it was inevitable, and urged the government not to rely on enforcement to curb the number of small boats.
“Enforcement alone is not the solution. 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. Smugglers will respond to tougher policing by making these refugees take bigger risks, with more perilous crossing points and more crowded boats,” he said.
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Ministers are braced for more fatal crossings in the coming weeks. September has become one of the busiest months for irregular crossings over the last few years.
Maritime authorities said on Saturday there had been numerous attempts to make the crossing in small boats in recent days, with 200 people rescued in 24 hours over Friday and Saturday alone.
At least 12 people died off the northern French coast when their boat carrying dozens of people capsized this month. It was the deadliest such disaster this year, and 25 people had already died on crossings, up from 12 in 2023.
The French and British governments have sought for years to stop the flow of people who pay smugglers thousands of euros a head for the passage to England from France onboard small boats.
More than 800 people crossed the Channel to the UK on Saturday, according to provisional Home Office figures, the second-highest daily total this year. The 801 people were crammed into 14 boats, an average of 57 in each craft.
The only day this year that saw a higher number of crossings was 18 June, when 882 people made the journey.
More than 22,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in England by crossing the Channel since the beginning of this year, according to British officials.