A disabled woman ditched her walker and waded into chest-high water, splashing and straining as she desperately fought for a space on an overcrowded rubber dinghy bound for Dover.

The elderly woman was one of hundreds of migrants who piled on to boats heading to Britain just hours after the UK agreed to pay France £2million a week to patrol beaches.

Two people have died and three were injured in the incident, police said, and a third is believed to be missing.

Smugglers took advantage of the improved weather in Northern France to launch at least five boats following a week of zero crossings.

The Daily Mail witnessed around 50 migrants sprint across Gravelines Beach to the water after spending the night hiding in the dunes.

They took off their coats, socks and shoes before pulling up their trousers and donning life vests as they waited for the smugglers to come round with the boat.

The large group – made up mostly of Arab and African men – were followed by eight police officers who stood there, filming on their phones.

It was another 40 minutes before the boat made its way to shore but it became clear it was already half-full and the migrants inched further and further into the water, desperate to secure a place.

The smugglers screamed at the asylum seekers to get into place and grew frustrated at the crowd which struggled to obey orders amid the panic and confusion.

Two men, both believed to be in their 40s, were pronounced dead despite rescue efforts

Emergency crews including an air ambulance rushed to the scene between Calais and Dunkirk

It came after Shabana Mahmood signed a two-month extension deal for French cops to stop small boats

One disabled woman, who had been sitting on her walker during the long wait, abandoned the aid and was carried towards the boat by a relative.

And a desperate mother perched her two-year-old daughter on her shoulders as she tried to navigate the chest-high water.

It took the smugglers two attempts to manoeuvre the dinghy into position before migrants scrambled through the waves, wrestling for space on board.

Desperate screams echoed across the beach as those already crammed on board reached out frantically, hauling others from the water on to the boat.

Meanwhile, four migrants who appeared to be struggling were pulled from the Channel by French police on a patrol boat and transferred to a nearby coastguard vessel.

The migrant boat appeared to turn away but came around a third time to take on more passengers, though more than a dozen asylum seekers gave up and reluctantly walked back to safety.

The four smugglers who had orchestrated the launch then stepped off the boat, walked back to shore and casually strolled past police officers without so much as a glance from law enforcement.

Police later handed out space blankets to a Kurdish mother and her two children, who were soaked after wading into the water and failing to get on board the boat.

Those left behind had to make the gruelling 20km journey back to their camp, hopeful to make the journey to Britain another day.

An emergency helicopter could be seen searching the area, and French maritime authorities were seen hauling people out of the water.

Three were injured after being pulled from Channel

The tragic incident adds to the growing toll of crossings as migrants continue to risk their lives attempting to reach Britain from France

A Somali migrant, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Daily Mail he paid £1,200 for a seat on the dinghy but was turned away by the smugglers at the last minute.

‘I slept here in the dunes overnight and was promised a space but there were already too many people on it when it came to get us.

‘I shouted that we had all paid and that they needed to make room, but they told me I was banned from getting on one of their boats now.

‘I am devastated and don’t know what to do. I travelled for months to get here from Somalia and I am scared the Kurdish men are going to kill me for speaking out of turn.’

The 28-year-old was the first to walk back to shore to avoid the fury of the smugglers. 

He said he was not surprised to see the French police weren’t doing anything to stop them.

‘This place is very chaotic and the police never bother us,’ he said. ‘The smugglers walked past them and the officers didn’t even look in their direction.

‘I am scared for my life and I don’t know how I’ll be able to sleep tonight. They know all of my details and where I live. It’s not safe.’

A Sudanese man, who initially gave up on getting on the boat, had a change of heart at the last minute.

‘I am tired of waiting,’ he said as he threw the last of his clothes into the water. ‘I have to force my way on. I cannot go back to living at that camp. I have to try.

‘I want to go to the UK to build a better life for me and my family. The situation in Sudan is not good and it is either this or die from hunger back home.’

Meanwhile, an African mother struggled to comfort her two-year-old daughter after they failed to secure a spot on the dinghy.

The woman, in her 20s, came out shivering and did her best to try and calm the toddler down.

She handed her an egg to play with, and the toddler was soon darting across the beach, oblivious to the chaos that had just unfolded.

The UK is to pay France £16.2m to patrol beaches for the next two months as part of a renewed deal

Under a three-year agreement first signed in 2023, Britain has paid £476m to France for extra patrols to catch migrant smuggling gangs

While the agreement had been due to expire, talks to renew it have been extended by two months, as Mahmood pushes for more enforcement officers to be deployed by France

UK sources said the Home Secretary was ‘driving a hard bargain to deliver a better deal for the British people,’ adding: ‘We need more bang for our buck.’

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Labour were paying France for ‘continued failure’

‘We shouldn’t pay the French a penny until they agree to substantially increase their prevention rate and start intercepting at sea by force – as they promised last summer,’ Philip said

Dangerous crossings in the Channel have increased over the past three years, with 41,472 people arriving in the UK by small boat in 2025

The tragic incident came after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood agreed for the UK to pay France £16.2m to patrol beaches for the next two months, as the two sides continue to hammer out a new deal to intercept small boats attempting to cross the English Channel.

Under a three-year agreement initially signed in 2023, Britain has paid £476m to France for extra patrols to catch migrant smuggling gangs. 

While that deal had been due to expire in recent days, talks to renew it have been extended by two months, as Downing Street pushes for more enforcement officers to be deployed by the French government.

A Home Office spokesperson said that Mahmood was ‘driving a hard bargain to deliver a better deal for the British people,’ adding: ‘We need more bang for our buck.’

But Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Labour were paying France for ‘continued failure’.

He added: ‘We shouldn’t pay the French a penny until they agree to substantially increase their prevention rate and start intercepting at sea by force – as they promised last summer.’

Dangerous crossings in the Channel have increased over the past three years, with 41,472 people arriving in the UK by small boat in 2025. 

French government ministers have criticised the UK for making demands that risk the lives of asylum seekers.

According to Le Monde, Xavier Ducept, France’s junior minister for the sea, told a French parliamentary commission of inquiry last week: ‘What we want is for … the British to contribute to funding interception systems, which are very expensive.

‘But they must not make this funding conditional on a type of efficiency that could be extremely dangerous for migrants, for the (security) services, and for France … rescue comes first. And the law.’

So far this year, some 4,441 people have arrived in the UK on small boats.