Teenager charged with people-smuggling offence after four died while crossing Channel

A teenager has been charged with a people-smuggling offence after four people died while attempting to cross the Channel.

Ibrahima Bah, 19, of no fixed address, was arrested by police after the incident on Wednesday.

Four people died and 39 were rescued when a migrant boat capsized in the Channel.

Bah was charged with “knowingly facilitating the attempted arrival in the United Kingdom of people he knew or had reasonable cause to believe were asylum seekers”, Kent Police said.

He was remanded in custody and will appear before Folkestone Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

The Royal Navy, French navy, Coastguard and RNLI lifeboats were all involved in the major rescue operation off the Kent coast that began in the early hours of Wednesday, following reports of a boat in distress.

The circumstances surrounding the deaths are being investigated by detectives from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, assisted by the National Crime Agency.

Police are still working to establish the identity of those who died and locate their next of kin.

More than 44,000 people have made the dangerous crossing across the English Channel so far this year, government figures show.