PARIS (AP) — A 10-year-old child and two women died Monday on the treacherous migration route across the English Channel from France, apparently trampled to death on a boat packed with more than 100 people, French authorities said.
The so-called “taxi boat" ran into difficulty off the northern French coast, with its passengers asking for help, authorities said. Such inflatable boats attempt the dangerous crossing after picking up people from the beaches of northern France, where they wade into the sea to clamber aboard.
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A French maritime rescue boat took 105 people aboard, the maritime prefecture said in a statement. The child and the two women were declared dead by an intensive care team that was helicoptered aboard, it said.
The women were believed to be in their 30s, the regional government said in a separate statement.
“According to the initial findings of the investigation, it appears the deaths were caused by a stampede. The precise circumstances of the tragedy will, however, have to be established by the judicial investigation,” led by a prosecutor in the northern French port of Boulogne, the statement said.
Nine other people required medical treatment, it said.
The regional government says it has counted 20 deaths of would-be migrants so far this year -- mostly from drownings and other causes during attempted crossings of the Channel but also including others killed in traffic accidents. That compares to 21 killed during the same period last year.
In April, the French and U.K. governments signed a new multimillion-euro deal aimed at reducing the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, with increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France.