CAMPAIGNERS demanded safe routes today after four people, including a two-year-old boy, tragically died while attempting to cross the Channel at the weekend.
The boy was declared dead after the French coastguard responded to a boat carrying nearly 90 people that was suffering engine failure on Saturday.
In a second incident, a boat with 83 people on board which had sailed from the Calais area also suffered engine failure.
Two men and a woman were found unconscious at the bottom of the vessel, bringing the Channel death toll to 51 so far this year.
Meanwhile, the government has pledged to further tighten Britain’s borders and invest £75 million in border security, framing the move as a clampdown on smugglers.
Care4Calais chief executive Steve Smith said: “As our politicians talk about border security, more lives are being lost.
“All because they won’t show a backbone and introduce safe routes to claim asylum in Britain.
“The deaths could end now, if our political leaders created safe routes.”
A statement from Calais Food Collective said that the responsibility for the deaths lies with policies implemented by Britain and France that are designed to make life for displaced people “brutally intolerable.
“It is these policies, in large part funded by British money, which create the climate of fear and intimidation which drives people to risk their lives in the channel.
“To stop these deaths, the governments of France and Britain must cease their intimidation and heavy-handed policing, and the British government must urgently open a safe route so that these people can safely exercise their legal right to seek asylum.”
The government committed last year to spending £476m over the next three years on Britain-France border controls, funding more French patrols and a new detention centre.
Migrants’ Rights Network chief executive Fizza Qureshi said: “This tragedy, like so many before it, was entirely preventable.
“People are forced into dangerous and fatal crossings because they do not have any safe routes into Britain.
“How many people have to die or be killed before this government puts humanity first.
“The government must allow people of all nationalities to access sanctuary and protection in Britain safely.”
