The men were arrested on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration and entering the UK illegally, the BBC reports. 

Five migrants, including a child, died on Tuesday trying to cross the English Channel from France to England in an overcrowded dinghy, with officials saying some suffocated to death while still on board.

The deaths happened when a boat carrying 112 people, which had a recommended maximum capacity of 20, attempted the crossing on one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. 

Panic broke out among the passengers shortly after leaving the coast near Wimereux, northern France, when the boat hit a sandbank, causing people to stand up and the vessel to capsize.

While some of the five victims – a four-year-old girl, a woman and three men – drowned, others are believed to have suffocated and been crushed “as they desperately tried to free themselves”, an investigator was quoted as saying by the MailOnline.

Rescuers pulled 49 people from the water, four of whom were taken to hospital, but others clung on to the upturned vessel, determined to reach the UK.

“I have never seen a boat so overloaded,” said Jacques Billant, the mayor of Pas-de-Calais on the French side of the Channel, adding that people smugglers usually limited the numbers on board to about 50.

The BBC reported that a UK prosecutor said the boat had become dangerously overcrowded because “between 40 and 50 migrants are said to have emerged from the forest and forced their way on board, crushing many of those already there”.

Most of the migrants on board had paid people smugglers the equivalent of £1,000 for the journey.

The mayor of the French town of Wimereux blamed the UK for the tragedy, saying it was happening because the British “welcome” migrants.

However, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the events in the Channel on Tuesday, which came as the number of migrants who have died trying to reach the UK this year rose to 14, “underline the need to deter people from making this dangerous journey”.

According to the UK authorities, nearly 29,437 of the 67,337 asylum claims made in the UK last year were from people who arrived in the country on small boats that are often unseaworthy and overcrowded.

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