PARIS, April 9 (Reuters) – Four people died after a small boat carrying migrants seeking to reach Britain sank in the Channel and a search and rescue operation was underway, French local authorities said on Thursday.
“A taxi-boat sinking occurred today. The situation is still being assessed and remains subject to change,” local French authorities in Calais said in a press statement.
In the past year, traffickers have taken to motoring dinghies along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts picking migrants up along the shore. Authorities refer to them as ‘taxi-boats’.
Some 2,200 migrants have crossed the Channel, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, to Britain in the first two months of 2026, according to data from the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory. About 41,500 people crossed the Channel last year.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Alex Richardson and Richard Lough)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
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