Oct. 5 (UPI) — A 2-year-old boy was “trampled to death” and three other migrants seeking to cross the English Channel from France to Britain also died aboard crowded small boats while at sea, French authorities said Saturday.
An unconscious child was found aboard one of the inflatable dinghies, from which 15 other migrants were rescued off the coast near Calais, according to the French Maritime Prefecture in La Manche, Normandy.
The child was placed aboard the rescue ship Abeille Normandie and medics with France’s mobile emergency and maritime resuscitation service were flown in by a military helicopter. Despite their efforts, doctors soon afterwards pronounced the child dead.
The prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Jacques Billant, told reporters the child was a 2-year-old boy who had “suffocated to death” during a surge of people moving aboard the overcrowded vessel, which he said had nearly 90 people aboard when rescuers arrived.
Three adult migrants died Saturday in a second boat that had 71 people aboard. Billant said they also likely were “crushed, suffocated and drowned” as passengers jostled in 15 inches of water that had collected at the bottom of the craft.
Criminal investigations have been opened in both cases.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a social media post the boy had been “trampled to death” on the boat and vowed stronger action against human trafficking gangs which he said have “the blood of these people on their hands.”
The boy was born in Germany to a 24-year-old mother of Somali origin, local officials said, while sounding alarms about criminal gangs seeking to cram more and more people onto dangerous boats, now averaging about 65 people per craft.
Billant said the smugglers “do not hesitate to separate young children from their parents,” alleging the smugglers forcibly loaded the boy onto the boat after grabbing him away from his mother, who ended up staying on shore.
Between Thursday and Saturday, French officials stopped 31 attempts to cross the English Channel. Some 250 migrants have been rescued at sea by the maritime prefecture during the two-day span.
