A search and rescue operation is underway off the French coast after two people reportedly died during an attempt to cross the English Channel. The incident occurred just hours after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood secured a last-minute, two-month extension to a crucial beach patrol agreement.
French newspaper La Voix Du Nord reported that two migrants have died and another is missing. The two fatalities were pulled from the sea and pronounced dead shortly after. Another person received treatment for hypothermia before being transported to a hospital in Dunkirk. The attempted crossing on Wednesday morning saw approximately 50 migrants, including children, struggling to board a small vessel off Gravelines, France, with at least 12 French police officers present on the beach.
The development follows Mahmood's eleventh-hour decision on Tuesday to extend the existing arrangement, preventing the lapse of a nearly £500 million deal aimed at curbing Channel departures. Operational contracts will continue to be funded by £16.2 million as the UK and France thrash out a longer-term agreement. A Home Office spokesperson said Mahmood is “driving a hard bargain” with Paris, “getting more bang for our buck”.
When the deal was announced in 2023, the then-Tory government said the £478 million package would fund a new detention centre in France and hundreds of extra law enforcement officers on French shores. However, the number of crossings has risen, with some 41,472 people arriving in the UK by small boat in 2025, and Mahmood is under pressure to bring numbers down. She has previously been understood to be pushing for a new deal to include performance-related clauses linking funding to the proportion of boats intercepted by the French.
French government ministers have criticised the UK for making demands that risk the lives of asylum seekers. Xavier Ducept, France’s junior minister for the sea, told a French parliamentary commission of inquiry last week: “What we want is for … the British to contribute to funding interception systems, which are very expensive. But they must not make this funding conditional on a type of efficiency that could be extremely dangerous for migrants, for the (security) services, and for France … rescue comes first. And the law.” So far this year, some 4,441 people have arrived in the UK on small boats.
