LILLE, France, March 3, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - A seven-year-old girl drowned Sunday when a small boat carrying 16 migrants heading from northern France to Britain capsized, the prefecture in France's Nord department said.

The boat "was not appropriately sized to carry so many people," the local authority said in a statement, causing it to capsize soon after people boarded in the Aa canal a few kilometres from the coast.

It added that the girl's parents, who were travelling with three more of their children, were taken to a hospital in Dunkirk.