LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) – British police have arrested a Sudanese man on suspicion of endangering life after four migrants died while attempting to cross the Channel from France to Britain on a small boat this week, authorities said.
Britain’s National Crime Agency, which investigates organised crime, said the 27-year-old was arrested on Friday following the incident which occurred off the coast of Saint-Etienne-au-Mont, near Calais in northern France, on Thursday.
The man was arrested at a processing centre in Manston, southern England, on suspicion of ‘endangering another during a journey by sea to the UK’ under the new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act, the NCA said. He was not named and Reuters was unable to reach a representative for comment.
The four victims, two men and two women whose identities have not yet been released, died when they tried to board a water taxi which smugglers are increasingly using to avoid police, the NCA said.
Thirty-eight people were returned to the French shore after the incident, while 74 migrants sailed on to Britain, it added.
The numbers of people crossing the Channel to seek asylum in Britain have made illegal immigration a hot issue for Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his predecessors in Downing Street.
(Reporting by Muvija M; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
