Two migrants die after falling unconscious during English Channel crossing

Two migrants have died attempting to cross the English Channel in a boat packed with almost 80 people.

The French coastguard said two asylum seekers were recovered from the water unconscious.

Another 10 people were rescued in the latest Channel horror and the boat was allowed to carry on to Britain after the other migants refused to be rescued.

Rescue teams said the vessel left from a beach in Gravelines.

A spokesman for France's Maritme prefecture confirmed that the unidentified migrants were "pulled out by a Navy vessel" and sailors "performed first aid on the two victims, but they were soon declared dead."

Another investigating source said the the boat was "heavily overcrowded", and designed to carry no more than 20 people.

Pictures show migrants wrapped in blankets disembarking from a Border Force boat in Dover, Kent, on Wednesday morning.

Others were also brought to shore in an RNLI lifeboat.

The deaths on Wednesday come just days after another migrant was confirmed dead after a small boat sank in the Channel.

The Maritime Prefect of the Channel and the North Sea said on Monday that 62 people were pulled from the water after the "overloaded" boat broke up overnight.

Almost 13,000 people have made the journey across the Channel and arrived in the UK so far this year, a record number for this point in the calendar year.

Labour has insisted "smashing the gangs" will end the migrant crisis, despite fears over a lack of a deterrent. Border Force and the National Crime Agency will be given counter-terrorism style powers to go after the gangs, under new plans going through Parliament.

Small boat arrivals face up to five years in prison if they refuse to be rescued in the Channel by the French authorities. A new offence will be created to target those endangering another life during a crossing.

This means anyone fighting with French police on the beaches, holding children over the edge of a small boat or "rushing" vessels as they try to launch could all be prosecuted, with a maximum penalty of five years behind bars.

The law changes are designed to replicate powers in the Terrorism Act 2006, so that preparing for a crossing and possession of equipment such as boats, engines and life jackets would be a criminal offence if the intention was to use them to take migrants across the Channel.

And sending failed asylum seekers to Balkan nations is considered another weapon in the "armoury" for the fight in the migrant crisis.