French authorities on Thursday said they had rescued 6,310 migrants trying to cross the English Channel on increasingly overcrowded boats to reach Britain in 2024, a 30 per cent rise on the previous year.
In total 72 people died and three went missing, the maritime authorities for the northern French region of Pas-de-Calais said.
However last week Xavier Delrieu, a French official heading an office tasked with battling migrant smuggling, gave a higher toll.
He said there had been 78 deaths last year, a record since small boat journeys across the Channel increased in 2018.
Both London and Paris have vowed to crack down on the people smugglers who are sometimes paid thousands of euros by migrants to organise the crossing to England on packed dinghies.
Thursday鈥檚 report said that while smugglers loaded an average of 45 people on a single small boat in 2023, that figure had increased to 54 last year.
It said this had increased the number of deaths linked to asphyxia by crushing aboard these dinghies.
Some migrants last year were embarking further south along the coastline than previously, leading to longer journeys and extended periods during which they were exposed to the elements and the risk of crushing, it added.
鈥楾he stage of boarding and/or return to the beach is particularly dangerous and chaotic, resulting in the risk of hypothermia or drowning and/or asphyxia,鈥� the report noted.
Men, women and children often wade out into cold choppy waters off the beaches to board the unstable dinghies.
It added that migrants and smugglers were so determined to reach British shores that they often only sent out distress calls 鈥榓s a last resort鈥�.
Migrant rights groups however say that increased police surveillance is forcing migrants to take more risks.
