SUELLA BRAVERMAN is facing calls to resign over the deaths of four people in the Channel today as campaigners blamed the loss of life on her “hostile environment” policies.

Some 43 people are said to have been rescued, with 30 pulled out of the water, after a small dinghy got into difficulty while attempting to cross the Channel in freezing conditions early on this morning. 

An MP said later that afternoon that some survivors were still fighting for their lives in hospital, adding that children and women were among those pulled out of the water.

A government spokesperson said RNLI lifeboats were launched from Dover at 3.07am, after distress calls were received by the British and French coastguard at around 3am of a boat in distress off the coast of Dungeness. 

“After a co-ordinated search and rescue operation led by HM Coastguard, it is with regret that there have been four confirmed deaths as a result of this incident,” the spokesperson said. 

Unconfirmed reports on today suggest however that the British and French coastguards were both alerted to a boat in distress around an hour before the British rescue operation was launched.

French refugee charity Utopia 56 said it received a voice message from a boat that capsized in the English Channel at 1.53am British time. 

The short message was sent to a volunteer, along with a location which indicated the boat was in French waters but close to the meridian line, Nikolai Posner, the communications officer at Utopia 56 told the Star. 

The message was from a man who said water had entered the boat. A baby could be heard crying in the background.

The charity then alerted the French coastguard some minutes later, and at 2.14am volunteers emailed both the French and British coastguard, around an hour before the government said authorities were alerted to a boat in distress, Mr Posner said. 

The volunteers, who were monitoring vessels in the Channel, then directly called the British coastguard at 2.25am. 

Just before 3am, they made another call to the French coastguard who told them that the British coastguard was leading a search-and-rescue operation. 

Mr Posner said the charity had received five distress calls that evening. He said the charity could not be certain that the boat was the same as the vessel involved in the fatal incident in the Channel, “but all the information we have points to this.” 

“When we sent the message to the French coastguard they should have sent someone directly,” he said.  

“It seems that there is one hour between us calling the French coastguard and the British actually responding.

“The main issue is you have one country who wants to push people from and another that wants to push people back and so those situations bring this.” 

Tory MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke also told the Commons earlier it was her understanding that the boat got into difficulty near the Meridian line. 

She noted that this was similar to the situation last year when at least 31 people died in the Channel after their boat began to sink near British waters. 

An investigation into the search-and-rescue operation recently revealed that people drowning made repeated calls to the French and British coastguard but the two “passing the buck” for hours over who was responsible for the rescue. 

Mr Posner said politicians must respond to the latest tragedy, which comes just over a year since the mass loss of life in the Channel on November 24, 2021, by opening safe routes.

News of more deaths in the Channel has prompted anger from campaigners and calls for the Home Secretary to resign. 

Civil servants’ union PSC head of bargaining Paul O’Connor said: “Today’s tragedy, coming just over 12 months after 32 people tragically lost their lives in the Channel, was entirely avoidable. 

“The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, says her heartfelt thoughts are with all those involved. 

“Those words ring utterly hollow when she has spent her time as home secretary vilifying and demonising the very people she now feigns sympathy with. She should resign in disgrace.” 

Others said that the government’s decision to double down on security and deterrence has failed to stop small boat crossings and has only made the crossing more dangerous.

Refugee Action chief executive Tim Naor Hilton said: “Let’s be clear, today’s tragedy and those on previous days are predictable and inevitable and caused by hostile government policies — such as those announced yesterday by the Prime Minister — which are designed to keep people out and not keep people safe.

“The government must create more routes to reach the UK to claim asylum. Until they do, more people will die trying to reach safety here.”

The Institute for Race Relations, which as conducted research on the link between security measures and deaths at the UK-France border said the government’s “obsession with ‘control’ and ‘deterrence’ is as inhuman as it is stupid.”

“The government well knows both that more crackdowns lead to more night crossings, to avoid detection - and so more deaths; and that the only policy that will stop the deadly small boats is opening safe routes to asylum,” the think tank’s vice-chair Frances Webber said.

However, in her response to the tragedy in the Commons, the Home Secretary defended the policies, insisting that deterrence “must be a necessary element” in dealing with small boats.

HM Coastguard said that a rescue operation was still ongoing on Wednesday afternoon.

A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson said: “If a vessel needs search-and-rescue assistance, HM Coastguard will continue to respond to all those in need. Our thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their lives today.”

Care4Calais founder CLare Moseley accused the government of "doing nothing" to prevent further deaths following the Channel tragedy last year, "and so has failed both the refugees who need our help and our country.”

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has been approached for comment on Utopia 56's claims.