InfoMigrants

On Sunday night and the early hours of Monday morning, French authorities said they rescued 62 people from three different small boats that had gotten into difficulty in the Channel, off the French coast.

One migrant was pulled unconscious from the water and pronounced dead by medical teams on board a boat. In total, 62 migrants were rescued on Sunday night going into Monday morning (May 19), states a press release from the French maritime prefecture.

The rescue teams were alerted after a migrant boat was discovered off the coast of France. The crew on board the Abeille Normandie was immediately sent to survey the boat and make sure that it didn’t get into difficulty, states the press release.

As it was being followed by the Abeille Normandie, authorities realized that the overloaded boat was "falling to pieces." The crew on board the French ship sent out a Mayday message and was joined by three other rescue ships, including a British Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) (a British charity that operates in British waters saving lives at sea and is often active in recovering migrant boats in the Channel if they get into difficulty.) A border force ship also joined the search and a British surveillance plane that happened to be in the area.

Search helicopter discovered one person dead in the water

The French authorities also sent out a search helicopter with a medical team on board. Once the helicopter reached the area where the boat had got into trouble, they winched their medical team down on to the Abeille Normandie, and carried out a search for migrants who may have already fallen into the water.

The team on board the Abeille Normandie took 50 migrants on board. The RNLI took two people on board and the Border Force ship took nine people on board. Then everyone rescued was transferred to the larger French ship.

While searching, notes the press release, the helicopter discovered an unconscious person in the water. The RNLI team took them on board and transferred them to the Abeille Normandie, where they could be examined by the medical team, but they were declared dead by that team.

Abandoned belongings of migrants in Wimereux, Northern France, in April 2025 | Photo: picture-alliance/Bartek Langer

Hospitalized for hypothermia

A mother and her child were among the 62 rescued and were found to be suffering from hypothermia, so they were evacuated by helicopter to hospital in the French town of Boulogne-sur-mer.

The rest of the migrants rescued were transported by ship to Boulogne where they were looked after by rescue services on shore.

The maritime prefecture ends the press release with its usual warning, that the shipping area is one of the busiest in the world, more than 600 commercial ships plough its waters each day and the weather conditions can change quickly. Wind speeds regularly meet or exceed force 7, strong winds, in this area, on more than 120 days per year, even when the sea can appear calm when on shore.

According to the local French newspaper La Voix du Nord, on the day when the boat was discovered, "there had been a lot of departures" of migrant boats. The incident happened at around 2:30 am on Monday, confirmed the French Maritime Prefecture to the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP).

Deaths this year

Including this latest death, at least 12 people have now died in the Channel since the beginning of the year, reports AFP.

Last weekend, in similar circumstances, where the seas appeared calm and many migrant groups attempted the voyage, another person was reported to have died.

Last week, one person died off the coast of Hardelot, not far from Boulogne, and at least six people were reported to be injured after another boat got into trouble.

Here too, the migrant boat was being surveilled at a distance by the French authorities when it began to break up at sea, confirmed the French Maritime Prefecture. "The back of the boat, where the motor is fixed came off," stated the French authorities.

In this incident, several of the migrants suffered from hypothermia as well. La Voix du Nord reported that two young Somalian men, aged 20 and 26 years old respectively, had burns on their legs. Two women, 35 and 28, reported to be from Eritrea, as well as two more Somalians, all needed hospital treatment.

The lorry route

Then on Tuesday evening (May 13), an Eritrean migrant was reported to have died on the outskirts of Calais, while trying to get onto a lorry and smuggle himself to the UK via the ferry route.

At around 11:20 pm on May 13, a body was found in a car park in Marck, near Calais, reported AFP. The driver of the lorry, who is reported to be a Bulgarian national, left the parking lot as the migrant was found, but was stopped by police roadblocks shortly afterwards.

Although the attempts to reach the UK via lorry are less frequent now than those who try and board a ship, for migrants who don’t have enough money to pay smugglers, attempting to climb onto a lorry can represent the only option to reach the UK. In February, another Eritrean migrant was reported to have died after being hit by a lorry on the A16 motorway not far from Calais.

The majority of migrants who attempt the lorry route come from Sudan, reports InfoMigrants French. In November 2024, they spoke to a 17-year-old, Amjad, who had been living in a makeshift camp outside Calais. He told InfoMigrants that he had tried at least 20 times to board a lorry.

Amjad explained that the problem for them was not so much the police checks, but that sometimes the lorry drivers could become violent if they found migrants on board their lorries. “One time, a driver tried to mow me down,” claimed Amjad. "Another time, I was thrown off the lorry and thrown to the floor by the driver." At the time, Amjad said he would return to the migrant camp at about 3am, exhausted by his aborted attempts to board a lorry. "I try every day," said Amjad. "I know the risks, but what other option is there for me? For the boats, you have to have money, do you have any money for me?" he asked the InfoMigrants' team.

Attempts to cross the Channel slightly increased this year, say Frontex

The BBC reported that in 2024, more than 5,000 migrants may have tried to hide themselves on lorries to reach Britain, but were all stopped at the port.

According to British government data, 12,699 migrants have successfully crossed the Channel from the French coast to the UK since the beginning of the year, the last available figures are from May 17.

The European border agency Frontex noted earlier this month that although the number of irregular crossing attempts had overall declined at each European border, crossing attempts towards the UK showed an increase of five percent compared to the same four-month period in 2024.