More people have made the perilous journey across the English Channel, a day after 27 people drowned in the deadliest crossing on record according to BBC.
A group wearing life jackets were seen huddled together onboard a lifeboat near Dover on Thursday morning.
Those who drowned on Wednesday included 17 men, seven women – one of whom was pregnant – and three children, France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin said.
Five people have been arrested in connection with the fatal crossing.
Mr Darmanin said regional prosecutors had launched an investigation into aggravated manslaughter.
He said two survivors were in a critical condition in a French hospital, where they are being treated for severe hypothermia. One is Iraqi and the other Somali, he told RTL radio.
It was earlier reported 31 people had died, but the total was revised down overnight into Thursday.
The alarm was raised on Wednesday after a fishing boat crew spotted several people in the sea off the coast of France.
Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs she had spoken to her French counterpart and offered to put more officers on the ground and continued to push for joint patrols of the Channel.
She said Wednesday’s incident was a dreadful shock but not a surprise, adding: “It is also a reminder of how vulnerable people are put at peril when in the hands of criminal gangs.”
Downing Street said the scenes of people continuing to arrive in boats on England’s south coast showed the need to crack down on traffickers.
“It illustrates that we absolutely need to step up our work with our French counterparts to dismantle this horrific trade which preys on vulnerable people,” the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.
Earlier, immigration minister Kevin Foster said the UK was determined to smash the “evil” business model of people traffickers, who he said were sending people into the Channel’s dangerous waters on flimsy boats.
“Those who organised that boat yesterday would have just viewed these people… who passed away, as just a profit-making opportunity,” he told BBC Breakfast.
Image Source : BBC News
