'It's truly awful...four migrants without life jackets die in Channel

THE deaths of four migrants whose overcrowded boat capsized in the Channel are "truly awful", the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said yesterday.

- Hanna Geissler and Peter Allen

The passengers, who did not have life jackets, died on the northern French coast, near Boulogne.

According to the French coastguard, 63 migrants were rescued in an operation involving four ships and one helicopter, including a fishing vessel that picked up 14.

A further four were taken by a medical team but could not be saved.

Ms Cooper said on X: "The further loss of life in the Channel this morning is truly awful. My thoughts are with all those affected.

"Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk.

"We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue and bring down dangerous smuggler gangs." Shadow home secretary James Cleverly described the deaths as a tragedy. He wrote on X: "As a country we must do everything in our power to stop the boats and put an end to this vile trade in human suffering."