Police make fourth arrest after migrant deaths

POLICE said Thursday (25) that they had arrested another man after five migrants, including a child, died this week trying to cross the Channel from France.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said it arrested an 18-year-old from Sudan late Wednesday (24) on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration and entering the UK illegally.

The arrest came as part of an investigation into the Channel small boat crossing which resulted in the deaths of five people on a French beach on Tuesday (23).

The NCA detained two Sudanese nationals aged 19 and 22, and a South Sudan national, also 22, on Tuesday and Wednesday, also on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration and entering the UK illegally.

The 19-year-old has been released without charge, and is now being dealt with by immigration authorities, said the NCA.

The latest arrest took place at Manston in Kent, southeast England, and the suspect was taken into custody for questioning.

Three men, a woman and a seven-year-old girl lost their lives in the early hours of Tuesday in the sea near the northern French town of Wimereux.

They had been in a packed boat that set off before dawn but whose engine stopped a few hundred metres from the beach.

Several people then fell into the water. About 50 people were rescued and brought ashore but emergency services were unable to resuscitate the five.

The deadly crossing on Tuesday took place just hours after the British parliament passed a bill paving the way for asylum seekers who arrive in Britain without permission to be deported to Rwanda, a policy which prime minister Rishi Sunak argues will deter people from making the dangerous journey.

Fifteen people have died this year trying to cross the busy shipping lane from northern France to southern England.

That is already more than the 12 who died in the whole of last year.

(Agencies)