A desperate mum reportedly sent texts telling friends her family had "no choice" but to attempt a Channel crossing to Britain, before they all likely perished.
Shiva Mohammad Panahi is understood to have sent the messages on Saturday from a packed migrant camp in a Dunkirk forest, where her family of five were living in squalid conditions.
"If we want to go with a lorry we might need more money that we don't have," the 35-year-old mum-of-three said in another text, reports the BBC.
While a third adds: "I have a thousand sorrows in my heart and now that I have left Iran I would like to forget my past."
Shiva died along with husband Rasoul Iran-Nejad, 35, daughter Anita, nine, and son Armin, six, after their boat capsized.
Baby Artin, who was also on the boat, remains missing. A search for him has since been called off.
The Kurdish-Iranian family, from Sardasht in Iran, paid smugglers £21,600 to get them across the Channel.
Fifteen other people on the tiny vessel received hospital treatment for hypothermia after the accident.
The migrants had reportedly been warned against attempting the crossing due to rough conditions, with winds of up to 57mph and five-foot waves.
A friend of Rasoul said the family left Iran on August 7 for Turkey before travelling by ferry to Italy and then driving to France.
Shortly before noon yesterday French emergency services said there is no chance of finding more survivors from the boat.
The search was called off on Tuesday night because of darkness and bad weather and did not begin again on Wednesday, an official with the French maritime agency for the Channel and North Sea region said.
The overcrowded ‘day fishing dinghy’ capsized at around 9.30am on Tuesday in "very bad weather conditions including high wind and rain", said local official Hervé Tourmente.
Ahmed, a fellow migrant who slept in a tent next to Shiva and her family, told the Daily Mail the night before the attempted crossing construction worker Rasoul "was fearing for the children's lives".
"They were all desperate and crying," added the 30-year-old, who said the family were concerned about the amount of money they'd had to borrow.
He added: 'Rasoul was saying, ''I want to be in peace, I don't want to fear for my life any more''. But his wife had second thoughts about going. Rasoul told her it was the only way as the [asylum] process is quicker in the UK."
The tragic family are said to have gathered at 8am on the beach in the Loon-Plage area.
A yachtsman saw the capsized boat 90 minutes later and raised the alarm.
Sébastien Piève, the Dunkirk prosecutor, said a criminal enquiry was focusing on suspected manslaughter, causing injuries and ‘assisting people in an irregular situation’ as they hunted for the middlemen and people smugglers responsible.
Mr Piève said no suspects had yet been caught, but seven survivors were in custody ‘for questioning’ over possible connections with a gang.
The latest drownings follow a war of words between France and Britain over who should be preventing migrants making the perilous sea journey between the two countries.
