Eight dead after attempting to cross Channel – as 801 people arrived in UK on small boats yesterday
At least eight migrants have died off the coast of France while attempting to cross the English Channel – as new data reveals 801 people arrived on the UK’s shores yesterday.
The latest government figures show those who arrived made their journey on Saturday in 14 boats.
It is the second-highest number of arrivals this year. The current record for the highest number of arrivals in one day this year so far is 882 in 15 boats on 18 June.
The deaths occurred after a vessel “tore apart on the rocks” off Ambleteuse in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France overnight, a regional official said.
Some 51 survivors of the disaster were rescued. Six were taken to hospital, including a 10-month-old baby suffering from hypothermia.
Pic: AFP via Getty Images
“Driven by profit, human traffickers are putting more and more lives at risk, selling crossings in dangerous conditions on ill-suited boats,” the official, Jacques Billant, said. “This is literally leading them to their deaths.
“The boats are overloaded, of poor quality, underinflated, without proper flooring, underpowered, and lack life jackets for all passengers.”
Only one in six people on the boat had a life jacket, he added.
A map showing the locations of migrant rescues
It comes as French authorities rescued some 200 people off the coast of Calais over a 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday night.
A boat carrying migrants that was in poor condition was located off the coast of Le Portel, a French coastal town, and 55 people were rescued.
Elsewhere, 61 people were picked up off the coast of La Becque d’Hardelot, 48 people were recovered near a lighthouse and at the end of the day 36 more were rescued, French authorities said.
All of those rescued were brought back to land.
French authorities said they monitored 18 attempts to launch boats across the Channel on Saturday.
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Migrants arrive in Dover
Responding to the disaster, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “It’s awful. It’s a further loss of life.”
He added that the government has been “discussing how we go after those gangs, in cooperation upstream with other European partners”.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said: “This is yet another appalling and avoidable tragedy and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who’ve died.
“These perilous crossings are seemingly becoming more and more dangerous, suggesting smugglers are taking greater chances with people’s lives as they try to evade detection efforts by the UK and French authorities.”
He added: “The government’s ‘smash the gangs’ slogan and its security-heavy approach is contributing to the death toll because the refusal to establish safe asylum routes means these flimsy vessels controlled by people smugglers are the only real option for desperate people fleeing persecution.”
Mr Valdez-Symonds added: “Until UK ministers and their counterparts in France start sharing responsibility over the need for safe routes, we should expect this weekend’s tragedy to keep repeating itself time and time again.”
It comes less than two weeks after at least 12 people, including 10 women and girls, died after a boat with dozens of migrants tore apart in the English Channel.
The French coastguard said more than 65 people were rescued after the vessel got into difficulties off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez.
France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin said only eight of the 70 people on board had lifejackets.
It was the deadliest incident so far this year, which had already seen 25 people die attempting to cross the Channel.
At least 45 people have died in Channel crossings so far this year.
More than 21,000 people crossed the English Channel in small boats between January and September this year, government figures show.
World
Beirut blasts: More ‘communication devices’ explode in Lebanon day after Hezbollah members killed
Blasts have been heard in Beirut a day after 12 people were killed by pager explosions across Lebanon.
Reuters has cited a security source and a witness as saying communications devices used by Hezbollah have detonated in the country’s south and in the southern suburbs of the capital.
Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV reported explosions in multiple areas of Lebanon, which it said were the result of walkie-talkies detonating.
Middle East latest: Fresh wave of blasts heard in Lebanon
Smoke rises from a shop in Sidon, south of Beirut, after the explosions on Wednesday. Pic: Reuters
At least one of the blasts heard took place near a funeral organised by Hezbollah for those killed yesterday, Reuters said.
Three people were also reportedly killed in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa region in the latest wave of attacks, according to Reuters, citing the country’s state news agency.
This comes after nearly 3,000 people were injured and 12 killed by pager explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday.
Two children were said to be among the dead, according to Lebanese health minister Firas Abiad.
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A firm in Hungary’s capital has been linked to thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon in an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah militants, killing 12 people and seriously injuring thousands.
Images of the destroyed devices showed a format and stickers consistent with the AR-924 model of pagers with Gold Apollo branding – a Taiwan-based company.
But the firm’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the devices were actually made under licence in Budapest by a firm called BAC Consulting, using the Gold Apollo name.
BAC’s address in Budapest is a small gated building.
Middle East latest: ‘Israel planted explosives in pagers’
The blasts were triggered by pagers like these
In a statement given to Sky News in Taiwan, Gold Apollo said: “Apollo Gold Corporation has established a long-term private label authorisation and regional agency cooperation with BAC.
“According to the agreement, we authorise BAC to use our brand trademark for production sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC.”
The remains of what is said to be one of the exploding pagers
Asked about the pagers and the explosions, the CEO of BAC Consulting Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono told Sky News: “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.”
A Sky News reporter in Budapest saw people arriving at the BAC Consulting property this morning who identified themselves as plain-clothes officers and asked not to be filmed.
Neighbours said they hadn’t seen anyone going in or out of the building for several weeks until today.
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Explosion at Lebanon market
Twelve people were killed and thousands seriously injured when pagers across Lebanon exploded on Tuesday.
Lebanon’s health minister said as many as 2,800 had been wounded. Some 300 people are in critical condition, with injuries to their eyes and face, while some have had body parts amputated.
A Lebanese security source has told the Reuters news agency that Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside thousands of pagers ordered by the militant group Hezbollah months before the explosions.
The senior source said the militant group had ordered 5,000 beepers which several other sources said were brought into Lebanon in the spring.
They claimed the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level”.
Another security source told Reuters up to 3g of explosives were hidden in the new pagers that went “undetected” by Hezbollah for months.
Lebanese officials laid the blame on “Israeli aggression”, while Hezbollah promised to retaliate, insisting Israel would receive “its fair punishment” for the blasts.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in a cross-border conflict since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October – sparking the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza – fuelling fears of a wider war in the Middle East.
World
Explosive pagers used by Hezbollah had been modified by Israel ‘at production level’, Reuters told by Lebanese security sources
Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside thousands of pagers ordered by Hezbollah months before the devices exploded, a Lebanese security source has told the Reuters news agency.
The senior source said the militant group had ordered 5,000 beepers which several other sources said were brought into Lebanon in the spring.
The same source claimed that the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level”.
A second security source told Reuters that up to 3g of explosives were hidden in the new pagers that went “undetected” by Hezbollah for months.
The remains of what is claimed to be one of the exploding pagers
Middle East latest: ‘Israel planted explosives in pagers’
Details from the Reuters report are similar to one by the New York Times, which cited American and other officials.
Images of the destroyed devices analysed by Reuters showed a format and stickers that were consistent with the AR-924 model of pagers with Gold Apollo branding – a Taiwan-based company.
The firm’s founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the devices were actually made under licence in Europe by a firm called BAC, using the Gold Apollo name.
In a statement given to Sky News in Taiwan, the company said: “Apollo Gold Corporation has established a long-term private label authorisation and regional agency cooperation with BAC.
“According to the agreement, we authorise BAC to use our brand trademark for production sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC.”
Apollo Gold declined to give further details of the European firm.
The model, like other pagers, wirelessly receives and displays text messages but cannot make telephone calls.
People gather outside American University of Beirut Medical Center. Pic: Reuters
Nine people were killed and thousands seriously injured in Tuesday’s explosions in different parts of Lebanon, the country’s health minister said.
Firas Abiad said 200 of the 2,750 wounded were in a critical condition.
Lebanese officials laid the blame on “Israeli aggression”, while Hezbollah promised to retaliate insisting Israel would receive “its fair punishment” for the blasts.
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‘Around 2,750’ injured in pager blasts
The Israeli military, which has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza in October last year, has refused to respond to questions about the detonations.
Experts broadly agree that the blasts do not look like a typical lithium battery fire.
Read more:
Pager explosions will sow chaos
How Israel is suspected of using technology
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Keren Elazari, a hacker and security researcher at Tel Aviv University, told Sky News: “There is no remote hacking capability that could generate that kind of kinetic explosion… some sort of a physical explosive component was probably part of the equation.”
Bomb disposal expert and former British army officer Chris Hunter added that his initial theory – based on injuries – suggests the blasts are “consistent with one to two ounces of high explosive”.
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Ambulances at scene of pagers explosion
“We’ve seen this sort of similar MO [particular method] with mobile devices before,” he said, pointing to the assassination of Hamas master bomb maker Yahya Ayyash whose mobile phone had been laced with a small amount of explosives.
Hezbollah fighters would have considered pagers a lo-fi, harder to infiltrate alternative to mobile phones, according to Sky News’s Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall.
It comes after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members in February not to carry mobile phones because Israel could use them to track their movements.
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