Search continues for those feared missing after Channel boat incident

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Search operations continued in the Channel on Thursday amid fears that up to four people were missing at sea after a crowded dinghy packed with people trying to come to the UK sank in the small hours of the day before.

Four people were confirmed dead on Wednesday, but the fear was that several more had been drowned and were unrecovered in the freezing waters after their small boat ran into trouble just before 3am.

More than 40 were rescued in an operation led by HM Coastguard with help from the French and British navies, RNLI lifeboats and fishing trawlers, one of which picked up 31 people and brought them to the UK.

Suella Braverman, the UK home secretary, and her French counterpart, G?rald Darmanin, released a joint statement, sending “our deepest condolences to the loved ones of those involved” and emphasised the two countries’ cooperation in the rescue efforts.

The incident, the two added, was “a stark reminder of the urgent need to destroy the business model of people-smugglers” who charge large sums to facilitate the crossing.

Rescuers from the fishing boats said they had been told that migrants had paid ?5,000 for a place on the dinghy, with people coming from Afghanistan, Iraq, Senegal and India. Others confirmed Afghanistan as one of the origins of those on the boat.

But Care4Calais, a charity that provides food and clothing for migrants who have to live out in the open in northern France, said Braverman was wrong. “It is the policies of her government that create the conditions for people smugglers to thrive,” the organisation said in a statement.

“The total lack of safe and legal routes creates the smugglers’ business model; increased security merely drives up their profits,” the charity said. “If refugees in Calais were given safe passage to the UK, people smugglers would be out of business overnight. More importantly, no more innocents would die.”

In November last year at least 27 people drowned when an overcrowded dinghy sank. Accusations followed that French and British authorities had passed the buck and failed to coordinate a proper rescue – and Wednesday’s efforts suggested a greater coordination between the two countries.

A distress call was first received at 1.53am UK time on Wednesday by a charity in northern France, with a man calling for the alarm to be raised to save his family who were in the icy waters. “Please help me bro, please, please, please. We are in the water and we have a family,” he said.

The alarm was raised with the UK and French authorities at 1.59am. It is thought that an 11-year-old child was among those rescued. None of the survivors were in hospital and their claims will be processed by the UK immigration authorities in the normal way once any further police and medical checks are complete.

More than 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats this year in a desperate attempt to get to the UK, typically paying several hundred or a few thousand pounds a time for the dangerous crossing that can take five hours or more.

Many came from conflict-ridden countries such as Syria, Afghanistan or Sudan and the grant rate of asylum applications is over 90% in initial cases. Their numbers have been swelled by growing numbers from Albania, and earlier this week the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said he would seek to speed up the return of people to the Balkan state, because the country was not embroiled in a war.