Four people dead after boat carrying migrants to UK started sinking

More than 500 people have made the dangerous journey across the Channel since the weekend.

A major rescue operation was launched after a small boat ran into difficulties in the English Channel near Kent. Source: Getty / Leon Neal

Key points

• Video appeared to show dozens of people in a small boat being rescued.
• It comes as the UK experiences cold weather during the winter.
• The UK interior minister said the government was cracking down on people smugglers.

Four people have died after a small boat carrying migrants to the UK capsized in the freezing waters of the English Channel, authorities said.

It was reported that 43 people were rescued from the waters after the boat, travelling from France, got into difficulty in the early hours of Wednesday local time.

A search and rescue operation, involving lifeboats, helicopters and the British and French navies, was launched, and footage from the scene appears to show a fishing trawler helping to pull people - some in just t-shirts and lifejackets - from a small black boat.

Temperatures have plunged across the UK in the last week, bringing snow to parts of the country, and

the incident occurred just over a year after 27 people died while attempting to cross the sea in an inflatable dinghy in November 2021, in the worst recorded accident of its kind in the Channel.

Despite the freezing cold, more than 500 migrants have made the perilous journey in small boats since the weekend alone, with the people traffickers who organise the crossings taking advantage of low winds and calm seas.

They have followed the more than 40,000 - a record number - who have arrived from France this year, many having made the journey from Afghanistan or Iran or other countries suffering war and repression to travel across Europe and on to the UK to seek asylum.

There have been a record number of people reaching the UK after crossing the Channel.

Speaking in parliament, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak expressed sorrow over the tragedy.

"Our hearts go out to all those affected and our tributes to those involved in the extensive rescue operation," he said.

Interior minister Suella Braverman, whose ministry oversees migration policy, put the blame firmly on the trafficking gangs.

"Crossing the channel in unseaworthy vessels is a lethally dangerous endeavour," she told parliament.

"It is for this reason above all that we are working so hard to destroy the business model of the people smugglers: evil, organised criminals who treat human beings as cargo."