'England is hope': risking everything to reach UK

They could have been on a school trip. Fifty teenagers from Vietnam, dressed for the biting cold in puffer jackets, smart trainers and woolly beanies, sat on the pavement by the bus shelter outside Gare Calais listening to music and watching videos on their smartphones.

- Daniel Boffey 

They were waiting for the 423 bus to take them back to a forest outside Dunkirk , where they have been staying at night with about a thousand others. It had been a disappointing morning for the group. Their attempt to cross to the beaches of England on a dinghy from Wimereux , a quiet coastal town 20 miles south of Calais, had been aborted at the last minute by their handlers.

Five people, including a seven year-old girl, had drowned after being thrown from an overcrowded boat shortly after leaving the French shore at around 5am .

A fight had broken out on the vessel after those who hadn’t paid tried to board, aid workers said. There were 112 on a boat that would have been overcrowded with half that number. The engine had stalled and it was the weakest who lost out, thrown into the freezing waters.

The child’s father, an Iraqi, had been found by rescuers on the vessel cradling his daughter. Her limp body had been recovered from the waves but she was unresponsive.

Not that this was the information passed to the Vietnamese. “The police took a knife to the boat so we couldn’t go,” said a 17-year-old among the group, who said she could not give her name.