A 16-year-old Sudanese teenager has become the first child to die in a desperate attempt to cross the English Channel to the UK in a small boat.

The French authorities announced the death after his body was washed up on a beach near Calais on Wednesday morning. He had reportedly got into difficulty in the sea on Tuesday night and was discovered at Bleriot beach, at Sangatte, hours later.

It is understood the teenager was travelling in a one-metre (3ft) dinghy with a friend, also a child, when he fell overboard on Tuesday night.

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