Several migrants have died while trying to cross the English Channel, it has been reported.

According to French media, eight people are believed to have died after a boat got into difficulty off the coast of Ambleteuse in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France overnight.

About 50 people had reportedly been on board.

It comes less than two weeks after 12 migrants died when their boat sank trying to cross the Channel.

An orange rescue boat in a port
One of the vessels from the French Gendarmerie Nationale in the port of Boulogne-Sur-Mer after the rescue operation earlier in September (Nicolas Garriga/AP)

A pregnant woman and six children were among those killed in the incident on September 3, with up to 65 people rescued off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez.

More than 30 people have died in Channel crossings so far this year.

Before this month, the French coastguard had recorded at least 19 Channel crossing deaths in 2024, including nine since the start of July. Last year, 12 migrants are thought to have died or were recorded as missing.

Responding to reports of the latest deaths, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “It’s awful. It’s a further loss of life.”

He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme he had been to the National Crime Agency and seen the “awful sort of rubber dinghies that people are coming across the Channel with, many of them, of course, not able to make it in these contraptions”.

Cumulative arrivals of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats
(PA Graphics)

The Government has been “discussing how we go after those gangs, in co-operation upstream with other European partners”.

Sir Keir Starmer will be in Italy on Monday for talks with counterpart Giorgia Meloni about her efforts to tackle the problem “and the work they have done, particularly, with Albania”.

The Prime Minister has said he is interested in the rollout of the policy, under which Tirana will accept asylum seekers on Italy’s behalf while their claims are processed.

On Saturday, French maritime authorities said more than 200 people were rescued in the Channel in a 24-hour period from Friday to Saturday.

Some 22,440 people have crossed the Channel so far this year, with nearly 9,000 having made the crossing since the general election.