Migrant crossing price cut to £435

Overloaded vessels make trip far riskier

SMUGGLERS are dangerously over- loading boats in the Channel by offering cut-price Christmas crossings – for less than £500 a person. 

The callous offers from Kurdish gangsters in Calais come just days after four died when their tiny craft sank in the icy waters.

The prices being offered yesterday are believed to be the cheapest fees ever to cross illegally by small vessel.

Last night Lucy Halliday of the Care4Calais charity said: “Some are paying as little as €500 (£435). The smugglers are taking what they can to fill up the boats and the lower the price the more people they try to get on board. We know they’re overcrowded.”

Lucy has witnessed multiple crossing bids daily in the French port since she arrived in February. She added: “The British government has blood on its hands. The migrants died because of the government’s hostile position on migrants.