English Channel's deadliest crossing disaster of 2024: At least 12 migrants die after overcrowded boat with 70 people onboard and not enough life jackets 'ripped open' and capsized

Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open,

said Olivier Barbarin, mayor of Le Portel near Boulogne-sur-Mer, where a first aid post was set up to treat victims

Unfortunately, every day is like this for us. The smugglers — a criminal network — continue with insistence to send people to their deaths in the channel. It really is unacceptable, scandalous. And it is high time that a lasting solution is found with Britain,

Mayor Jean-Luc Dubaële said by phone

That was hard because you know full well that no one will ever answer,

The bodies of two women were very young. That hurt me. I cried all day. I couldn’t stop,

said 53-year-old Samba Sy Ndiaye, who works aboard the Murex, one of two fishing boats that assisted the French rescue effort

It's a huge drama,

said Mayor Barbarin of what is the most deadly single incident in the English Channel involving migrants this year

It's difficult to achieve with more than 50 people on board who are vehemently refusing to be rescued. The main risk is a stampede on board and then a capsizing, these boats being neither stable nor reliable. The risk of loss of human life being too high for an intervention under duress, the choice is made to prioritize the protection of the people on board and by simply monitoring from a distance the navigation capabilities of these boats,

It is therefore more a question of ethics than of blind application of the law,

Our hearts go out to the loved ones of all those who have lost their lives, and all those who have been seriously injured.”

Ms Cooper

If people don't know how to swim in these agitated waters, it can go very quickly,

All government services have been mobilized to find the missing and take care of the victims,

It's time politicians were held accountable for their choice to dehumanise people seeking sanctuary from horrors back home,

Let's ask ourselves the question: Why do they want to go to Britain? Because something is drawing them there,

When the weather is good and there’s no wind, there are departures every day,

It is simply pushing people to take ever-increasing risks to do so,