The number of migrants who have died attempting to cross the English Channel since 2018 has passed 180, according to new figures, with experts warning the true toll may be higher.
The figure, announced by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, covers deaths from 2018 to 2026. The organisation said the “real toll may be higher than available numbers suggest”. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), which measures data from 2014, puts the loss of life at 382 people, including 31 women and 43 children.
The death toll is higher than the 179 British military lives lost during the Second Gulf War, and comes as Labour delegates gather for their annual conference in Liverpool. Two more lives were claimed last week, and 18,565 migrants have made the journey to Britain this year alone.
Political pressure mounts
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told the Sunday Express: “This madness must be stopped. The Channel crisis, driven by human rights lawyers, open borders zealots, and a government that has abandoned our borders has already become a humanitarian catastrophe. Andy Burnham must get a grip, deploy the Royal Navy, and start intercepting these dinghies, otherwise he will have more blood on his hands.”
The Prime Minister has said he will “not put a date” on stopping the crossing attempts. He still blames Brexit for a “loss of collaboration” with European neighbours, and despite saying his goal was to “see no crossings at all”, he added: “I'm not going to give you a date by which we can do that, or a promise we'll do it, as other governments have done in terms of a particular deadline”.
Harrowing accounts from the Channel
Horrific footage from a migrant boat launch in France last week showed a man leaving a baby behind as he made a mad scramble for a packed dinghy. The helpless tot was seen floating on the surf before French rescuers saved the child.
In harrowing testimony from another crossing, the Sunday Express has been told how a mother’s piercing scream was all that prevented her six-month-old baby from drowning in the bottom of a crowded migrant dinghy. The tot slipped from her arms as a boat carrying dozens of asylum seekers bounced through the waves and “ended up face down in water”.
A whistleblower close to the top echelons of Border Force revealed details about the experiences of those crossing. The source said: “I was speaking to a young woman who had crossed the channel the day before. She had arrived in a small boat with her children and I said to her what was the experience like? She told me it was terrifying. She was scared by how flimsy and overcrowded the boat was but she was shoved into the boat by the facilitators even though she could see there wasn't enough space. The crossing was terrifying and during the journey her small baby, who was about 6 months old, slipped out of her arms and ended up face down in the water in the bottom of the boat and because the boat was so crowded she couldn't pick her baby up. She knew her baby was drowning and eventually after screaming and crying at the other people in the boat they moved out of the way and she managed to pick her baby. She said it was the most terrifying experience of her life.”
Warnings from agencies and officials
The National Crime Agency (NCA) warned a sharp increase in deaths in 2024 was down to asylum seekers “opportunistically” charging through the water and bundling onto boats, leading to those on the vessels being crushed. Last September, a child died after falling off a small boat in the Channel, following two women being crushed to death days before. Children were among three to die when they were crushed in the bottom of their boat during an incident in September 2025, and a two-year-old boy was trampled to death in a stampede in October 2024.
The crime kingpins have started “catering” to poorer migrants, mainly from the Horn of Africa, leading to lower “average crossing prices”, an NCA insider told the Sunday Express. A Border Force source described the terrifying scenes of panic and chaos that unfold when one of the flimsy inflatable dinghies begins to sink. As the boats begin to deflate and take on water, a section of the vessel will begin to fold in on itself, and those trapped are unable to escape, submerged under the water, as the boat continues to collapse on top of them.
Many of those who reach Dover suffer horrific chemical burns caused by a toxic cocktail of engine fuel and seawater. With their clothes soaked through, the mixture becomes trapped against the skin rather than evaporating, causing severe burns. This includes children, who are often placed in the middle of the boats so that they don’t fall over the edge, meaning they end up sitting in the fuel spewing out from engines made in China, sources said. The boats themselves are often made from the same material used for children’s bouncy castles, held together with plywood and glue.
Callous people smugglers are prepared to separate youngsters from their parents moments before crossings. A source told the Sunday Express: “Facilitators on the shores of Northern France forced a family into two small boats that were dangerously overcrowded. The family got split, with the mother going in one boat and the child of about six going in the other boat. The mother's boat ran into problems and ended up not crossing the Channel. The 6-year-old girl arrived in the UK on her own, with no parents, and had to be taken into care whilst we found her mother and father and reunited her with them. It was a stark reminder of the callous disregard the facilitators had for human lives, even children.”
Calls for tougher action
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Sunday Express: “Andy Burnham and the Labour government - together with the French government who do nothing and the charities who actively encourage illegal immigrants - are culpable for these crossings. They must stop making pathetic excuses and take the tough measures needed to end these crossings completely and save lives. People are dying because of these crossings. I recently witnessed first-hand on a French beach the few women and children trying to board being shoved off the boat by aggressive young men. And when the illegal immigrants, who are mostly young men, get here they commit many terrible crimes including murder and multiple rapes with victims as young as just 12. It’s time for a different approach. There is a way to end this madness, as Australia did 13 years ago. We must leave the ECHR so illegal immigrants can be rapidly deported, not put up in hotels and paid money. Then the migrants would stop trying to cross in the first place.”
Former Border Force Director General Tony Smith told the Sunday Express: “Every successful crossing sends a message to the next migrant waiting on a French beach that this route still works. The smugglers keep adapting because the rewards remain high. Until that changes, this dangerous cycle will continue.”
