BBC witnesses tragedy as 7-year-old and four adults die trying to cross English Channel | BBC News

A dangerously overcrowded ship carrying more than a hundred people got into trouble near the French coast in the early hours, resulting in the deaths of five of those

trying

to

cross

, including a child. It happened just hours after MPS passed the Rwandan government's bill, which is designed to deter people from attempting

cross

ings like this. Our correspondent Andrew Harding was on that beach in the early hours of this morning, just north of Whita, filming as police ran towards people. The smugglers and those who paid them to cross had only been at sea for a short time. By the time they got into trouble, well now we can join Andrew, Andrew, good evening Rita, the smugglers in this area have access to almost 150 miles of coastline from which to launch their small boats, which makes it very rare and very difficult to witness one of those launches.

It just so happens, but that's what happened to us in the early hours of this morning on a large, beautiful beach near a French golf resort. A skirmish early this morning on a French beach. Well, we're just running to catch up with some immigrants here. the police are

trying

to stop a small boat from leaving the shore, it becomes violent and the police fail, the boat is dangerously overloaded, it seems that the immigrants who got on that boat are in trouble, but as we watch, we have no idea that. People on board are dying, including a 7

year

old girl, to understand how this happened we have to go back to yesterday afternoon, with crowds pressing into the bus station at C, eager to get to the beaches outside the city, smugglers stir in the forecast. for a clear, calm night in the

channel

perfect conditions for crossing young people from Syria from Sudan none are discouraged by the

news

that they could end up being deported from Britain to Rwanda Are you worried about the British sending you to Rwanda?

No, if it's safe and I can study in Rwanda, then that's fine too. He says, you hear that, yes, you don't want that, no, no, but that won't stop you today, no, nothing will stop you, no, no, no, don't stop waiting. The migrants along the coast are a high-tech force now funded by Britain that is spending millions of pounds on drones and other equipment to help French police find and stop the small boats, and yet in comparison With the same period last

year

, the number of crossings has increased. We need more equipment and more personnel, says Matild Portel, who coordinates the police effort here.

Our offices are brave, but the number of people boarding each ship is increasing. Official footage of French border police in the

channel

earlier this year, a difficult rescue operation in rough seas. As the number of attempted crossings increases, so does the number of deaths among migrants, increasing the sense of crisis. Here, a new development, hundreds of Vietnamese have recently begun to arrive on the coast. We found this group camped in a forest. The Vietnamese here seem quite confused. where they are going, they don't even know if they are supposed to end up in England, all they tell us is that they are escaping from gangsters in Vietnam who they owe money to two years ago, they were Albanian immigrants, now it's these people from Vietnam increasing the number and So for the overnight events, we head to a beach south of Cal, a popular launching spot for small boats, and sit for hours in the moonlight and wait, is there anyone walking there? ?

I can hear someone walking nearby. Two shadows The smugglers are almost certainly coming to check that we are not police officers. Hello, above us, a police plane is circling. We have arranged for a BBC camera to be on board. The crew spots two groups of migrants with their thermal imaging camera. They are in the sand. dunes and approaching each other on the beach, a French foot patrol arrives quickly, surely the migrants will give up now, but they don't. Suddenly, the beach erupts in screams, okay, we're running with the police as they try to intercept a group of them. about 60 or 70 immigrants and now things are getting violent fireworks thrown at the police several young men pulling out crude weapons you can see the smugglers here some of them have sticks they are trying to protect the immigrants as they head towards the sea to Avoid getting stopped by the police and it works.

Some stragglers are left behind, but the boat is allowed to move towards Open Water. Look at the boy on someone's shoulders on the right. Could the French police have done more to stop this? We asked an officer. We're not allowed to go into the water, he answers, and did you notice that they had sticks and there were children too, so we had to be careful? The boat is very overloaded, on the right, here you can see another child being carried out in an orange life jacket more than 100 people try to get on board somewhere in the scrum the last moments of a seven year old girl sounds like someone crying calling for help the rescue boats arrive a little later they take away the five dead but then something extraordinary happens: 58 people, more than half of the ship's original passengers remain on board, rejecting rescue offers, instead That's when they start the engine and manage to get out to the middle of the channel where they are picked up by this British ship and taken to the country where they were willing to take such risks to remember how difficult it is to dissuade some people and how complicated it can be for the police to intervene.

Now some people watching may wonder why the French police don't take much more aggressive action. To stop those boats well, one answer is that the police, as we have seen today, are facing increasing levels of violence from smugglers immigrants fighting with stones and rocks against each other and, in particular, against the police. It makes it very difficult for the police. intervene without running the risk of making the situation much worse, already in very difficult and dangerous circumstances