French police launch criminal investigation as eight men die and baby left seriously injured after small boat filled with migrants is ripped apart after hitting rocks in the English Channel

A criminal enquiry was launched today after eight men died and a baby ended up in intensive care following the latest small boat disaster in the English Channel.

Jacques Billant, the Pas de Calais prefect, as he confirmed eight unidentified migrants were declared dead at the scene, adding that six people were taken to hospital in relative emergency, including a ten-month-old baby with hypothermia.

They were among the 59 UK-bound migrants crammed into a flimsy dinghy which was ripped apart when it hit rocks close to Calais on Sunday morning.

Less than 10 people on board had life jackets on inside a boat organised by people smugglers charging up to £1000-a-head for an illegal passage from France to the UK.

It had set off from the Slack River, which flows into the English Channel close to the towns of Ambleteuse and Wimereux.

The toll was terrible, with eight people reported dead, said Jacques Billant, the Pas de Calais prefect.

French gendarme and a member of the Civil Defence stand in front of a tent that receive migrants after a failed attempt to cross the English Channel that led to the death of 8 people near the beach of Ambleteuse, northern France on September 15, 2024 

Less than 10 people on board had life jackets on inside a boat organised by people smugglers charging up to £1000-a-head for an illegal passage from France to the UK

There were 59 people in all, from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran, said Mr Billant, without further identifying anyone

Six survivors were rushed to hospital, including a 10-month-old baby with hypothermia.

Confirming a criminal enquiry by Boulogne prosecutors into the deaths of eight men, Mr Billant said: Only one out of six people onboard had a life jacket.

There were 59 people in all, from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran, said Mr Billant, without further identifying anyone.

The boat quickly got into difficulty and ran aground. The boat was torn apart on the rocks.

The entire floor of the boat was ripped off, said Mr Billant, adding that the kind of boats being used by the smugglers were totally unsuitable, overloaded, of poor quality, under-inflated, and under-powered.

The disaster at Ambleteuse took place just after 1am and - within six hours - migrants were putting out another boat in exactly the same location.

An emergency worker said: Bodies were being taken up on to a ramp at Ambleteuse, yet, by 7am, a second boat departure took place there too.

Boats have been setting off in the area throughout the weekend - there have been non-stop rescues.

Confirming the departure of the later boat, charity worker Christel Leclair, said: There are departures the whole time - winter, day, night, summer, as soon as the sea is calm.

The boats are more and more overcrowded. They dont have life jackets, just sometimes the inner tube of a tire.

There are children, pregnant women and tiny babies. Were sad and crushed by this.

A spokesman for the Regional Operational Centre for Surveillance and Rescue at Cap Gris-Nez confirmed that at least 18 attempts to reach Britain were made by different boats on Saturday.

Todays death toll means 46 migrants have perished in the English Channel in similar circumstances this year alone.

Stéphane Pinto, the Mayor of Ambleteuse and a former fisherman, said some of those on board may have been crushed to death, as happened at Wimereux earlier this year.

Mr Pinto said: Ive often seen boats like this one go out to sea. These people are not sailors. With a low tide current, the current is stronger than the boat.

Its possible they suffered engine failure, drifted, and hit the rocks.

Others were seen being rescued (pictured) from the boat which was carrying 53 migrants 

The French emergency services received a Mayday from a dinghy that got into difficulty off the coast at Ambleteuse, near Calais, in the early hours of Sunday morning. French officials are seen using a tractor to pull the damaged boat out of the water

Only the autopsy of the bodies will be able to determine whether the victims died of drowning or of being crushed, as was the case on April 23 in Wimereux.

In April, a criminal enquiry was also launched following the deaths of five migrants including a little girl around Wimereux.

Five migrants also drowned while trying to get to Britain from Wimereux beach on January 14.

The furious Mayor of Wimereux has frequently argued that such tragedies are all the fault of the British.

Jean-Luc Dubaele said in April: It is Britain that is responsible for the boats setting off across the English Channel and the deaths that occur in the sea.

The English pay us to stop the boats setting off but they look after the migrants when they arrive on their shores.

The English give them accommodation, food, a bank account, and let them work without regulation.

The worst tragedy of this kind came in November 2021, when 27 migrants died after a dinghy sank while heading to the UK - the highest recorded number of deaths from a single incident.

Last year, there were 67,337 asylum applications to the UK, and 29,437 of them came from people who arrived in small boats.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron pledged this summer to strengthen cooperation to fight the people smugglers.

Responding to the reports of more migrant deaths in the English Channel, shadow home secretary James Cleverly, who is running to be Tory party leader, told the BBCs Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: What we are seeing now is sadly is more fatalities in the Channel overnight and in the early hours of this morning.

We have seen fatalities on illegal Channel crossings going up, because the very first action of this Labour government was to scrap an international partnership which was deterring migrants - we know this because those migrants told us so - and send out a signal to people smugglers that the UK is open for them to ply their evil trade.

They came into government with no plan to stop the boats or smash the gangs. Saying stuff is not the same as doing stuff.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on the same programme: Its awful. Its a further loss of life.

He said he had been to the National Crime Agency and 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.

It comes as French authorities rescued some 200 people off the coast of Calais over a 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday night. (File image of migrants being brought to Dover as they attempted to reach the UK earlier this month)

People walk on a windy beach in Ambleteuse, France, earlier this week, with the White Cliffs of Dover in the UK visible in the distance

Despite the disaster, Sir Keir Starmer last week insisted his Government was making progress in stopping boats.

The Prime Minister said he was convinced Labour can succeed in taking down the gangs behind the people-smuggling trade, as he attended a summit with law enforcement agencies and security services on the issue.

But shadow home secretary James Cleverly said: Even 12 tragic deaths cannot wake Labour up to the need for an actual plan to put a stop to the small boats crossing the Channel.

Visiting the National Crime Agency with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on September 6, Sir Keir was asked how he could claim there is encouraging progress given the latest figures.

He told the BBC: Weve already managed to return over 3,000 people who are not entitled to be here.

That includes the single biggest dedicated flight that weve ever had.

So we are making progress. I acknowledge more needs to be done.

Weve got to take down the gangs running this vile trade of putting people into boats in the first place.

Thats why Im here today at the National Crime Agency with an operational summit to absolutely drive forward our work there.

Im determined that were going to reclaim control of our borders, something the last government lost control of.