'It's a human disaster' Towns on frontline of tragic Channel deaths

Security around Calais has led to dinghies launching farther along the coast-and taking bigger risks at sea

- Angelique Chrisafis

The local fishing crews had been finishing their long night's work catching lobster and crab off the northern French port of Boulogne-sur-Mer when the mayday alert came in.

Axel Baheu and Gaëtan Baillet immediately rushed to their two boats to assist in the rescue. A small inflatable dinghy had ripped apart in the Channel with at least 60 people, mostly from Eritrea, on board, hoping to reach England. What the fishers saw would haunt them for ever, they said.

Twelve people died in the disaster last Tuesday; at least half of them were under 18, and 10 were female. Baheu, in his lobster boat, the Murex, pulled three bodies from the water. He told the Voix du Nord newspaper that his crew had wept as they had pulled in the casualties and seen the inadequate precautions they had tried to take for safety in the dangerous waters.

One girl, whom Baheu estimated had been between 15 and 20, had carefully placed her phone in a plastic pocket, firmly secured around her neck. The phone was ringing as her body was brought to shore. Of the approximately 65 people on board, only eight had lifejackets. One had been carrying a swimming float.

Baillet, who has never before had to pull a body from the water, said the dinghy had been going down rapidly: "Only a little bit at the back was left, the rest was sinking."