Channel Crisis: Two Dead, 16 Injured as Overcrowded Migrant Boat Runs Aground

PARIS (AP) – A small boat carrying migrants trying to cross the English Channel ran aground on a beach in northern France, leaving two dead and 16 people injured, including three with serious burns, authorities said Sunday.

The vessel, carrying 82 people, set out overnight from Hardelot beach, a few kilometers (miles) south of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the engine failed and it began to drift, Christophe Marx, secretary-general of the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, told reporters.

A French maritime gendarmerie vessel rescued 17 people and brought them to Boulogne-sur-Mer, while the makeshift boat ran aground with 65 others still on board.

Two women were found dead, most likely from suffocation, Marx said. They are believed to have been “crushed or asphyxiated, as unfortunately often happens on boats … where too many people are packed in,” he said.

The women were believed to be in their 20s and to have come from Sudan, he said, adding that an investigation was underway. Three of the injured were in very serious condition with burns caused by fuel at the bottom of the boat, he added.

It was the third deadly incident involving migrants trying make the perilous crossing to the U.K. in just over a month.

Last month, two men and two women died as they were trying to board an inflatable boat off the coast of northern France. British authorities arrested a man from Sudan on suspicion of endangering life in that case. The week before, two other people died in similar circumstances off the coast north of Calais.

The U.K. and French governments signed last month a new multimillion-euro deal aimed at reducing the number of migrants crossing the English Channel, with increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France.

So far this year, more than 6,000 migrants have reached the U.K. after crossing the channel, down 36% from the same period last year, a drop that may partly reflect more unsettled weather.

Before Sunday’s deaths, migrant aid group Utopia 56 said that at least 172 people have died at the French-U.K. border over the past three years, including 123 at sea.

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