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Two men and two women have died after trying to cross the English Channel in a small boat on Thursday morning, French officials said. “Today there was a sinking of a taxi boat. The situation is still being assessed and remains subject to change,” French authorities in Calais said in a press statement.
So-called taxi boats are used by smugglers as a method of evading authorities by picking up their clients at various points along the coast, where they wait in waist-deep water, after departing from a location further away from where authorities are stationed.
According to the latest Interior Ministry data, 137 migrants arrived by small boats on Tuesday, after no arrivals had been reported in the previous five days. On April 1, 325 migrant crossings were reported.
Last week, French authorities reported two deaths off the coast of France, while six others were taken to hospital.
The latest deaths on small boats come as the UK and France extended talks on a new agreement to intercept small boats trying to cross the English Channel.
A three-year deal signed in 2023 saw the UK pay France £476 million to reduce illegal migration, with resources allocated to beach and coastal patrols.
Last month it was agreed that the UK would pay France an extra £16.2m to continue patrolling Channel beaches as part of efforts to catch migrant smuggling gangs until a new long-term deal is reached.
The French government has rejected Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's proposal to deploy British Border Force ships in French waters to intercept small boats trying to cross the Channel and return them to France.
France is not in favor of the plan because it would require UK government ships to operate in French waters.
French officials involved in the negotiations said that the sovereignty of their territorial waters was a red line, The Times reported.
Around 2,600 people who arrived in the UK in small boats were returned to another country in 2025, 10 percent more than the year before, according to official government figures.
Most of those who returned after arriving in small boats were Albanian citizens.
The UK-France agreement to prevent dangerous travel, which came into force in August 2025, allows for the return of arrivals from the UK to France, with an equal number of individuals eligible to come to the UK through a new legal route.
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