More than 20 migrants have died after their boat sank in the English Channel, French media has reported. The French AFP news agency earlier reported five deaths as Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, confirmed on Twitter that a boat had sunk in the Channel with several dead.
A rescue operation is under way near the port of Calais, after a fisherman sounded the alarm, a spokesman for the French coastguard said.
French prime minister Jean Castex said the shipwreck was a 'tragedy.' Read more:Mum posed as single parent to swindle £97,000 while secretly living with her partner “My thoughts are with the many missing and injured, victims of criminal smugglers who exploit their distress and injury,” he said.
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