Four members of one family died when the boat they were on sank in the Channel.
Rasoul Iran-Nejad, 35, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, 35, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, lost their lives attempting the crossing, The BBC has reported.
Their baby Artin is still missing.
The members of the Kurdish-Iranian family were victims of the tragic accident which also saw 15 other people receive hospital treatment.
A friend of Rasoul told the BBC that the family left Iran on 7 August for Turkey.
They then travelled by ferry to Italy and then drove to France.
The family, from Sardasht in Iran, paid smugglers £21,600 to get them across the Channel.
Shortly before noon today 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 yesterday in ‘very bad weather conditions including high wind and rain,’ said local official Hervé Tourmente.
Some of the 15 survivors recovering in hospital from hypothermia have since indicated that a child is still missing after falling overboard, Mr Tourmente added.
All those involved were Iranian Kurds who were on the last stage of their journey to claim asylum in Britain.
As a search-and-rescue operation resumed at first light on Wednesday, French police were also trying to find suspected people smugglers responsible for launching the small boat in hugely perilous conditions.
Sébastien Piève, the Dunkirk prosecutor, said a criminal enquiry was focusing on suspected manslaughter, causing injuries and ‘assisting people in an irregular situation.’
Mr Piève said no suspects had yet been caught, but seven survivors were in custody ‘for questioning’ over possible connections with a people smuggling gang.
The French authorities confirmed they were in touch with their British counterparts as part of the enquiry.
More than 7,400 people have arrived in the UK in small boats this year – almost four times as many as in 2019, with a record 416 arriving on a single day, September 2nd.
Official data further reveals that in the year to June 2020, there were 3,402 applications for asylum from children aged 17 or under.
The tragedy has been described as the worst of its kind to have taken place between France and the UK since migrants began using makeshift boats to get to Britain.
In 2019, four migrants drowned in individual incidents, and before today the figure was three migrants for 2020.
Last Sunday week, a migrant was found on the beach at Sangatte, next to Calais.
Next to him was a life vest – one typical of the kind that migrants wear as they pack rigid inflatable dinghies bound for the coast of England.
And in August a Sudanese migrant who could not swim drowned after the toy blow-up boat he was using to try and get to Britain was accidentally punctured by a shovel being used as a makeshift oar.
The horrific accident led to the victim, who carried identity papers and a mobile phone, tipping into the English Channel just off Calais.
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.
