Police Forensic officers head to the forensic tents erected at the RNLI station at the Port of Dover in Kent, the UK on December 14, 2022, after a small boat carrying migrants capsized. Four people have died and 43 people have been rescued. Photo: VCG

 A small boat loaded with migrants heading for British shores from France capsized in the freezing waters of the English Channel early on Wednesday, resulting in four deaths, the British government said.

Lifeboats, helicopters and rescue teams working with the French and British navies responded to the incident, which took place as immigration to Britain organized by people-trafficking criminal gangs has become in priority issue for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government.

"At 0305 [GMT] today, authorities were alerted to an incident in the Channel concerning a migrant small boat in distress," a government spokesperson said in a statement.

"After a coordinated 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."

An investigation was underway, the spokesperson said.

LBC radio station reported that 43 people had been rescued.

A Reuters journalist saw one body bag being removed from a vessel at the lifeboat station in the port of Dover.

The incident occurred just over a year after 27 people died while attempting to cross the sea in an inflatable dinghy in November 2021, in the worst recorded accident of its kind in the Channel.

Temperatures have plunged across Britain in the last week, bringing snow to parts of the country.

Despite the freezing cold, more than 500 migrants have made the perilous journey in small boats since the weekend alone.

The people traffickers who organize the crossings taking advantage of low winds and calm seas.

They have followed the more than 40,000, a record number, who have arrived from France in 2022.

Many have made the journey from Afghanistan or Iran or other countries to travel across Europe and on to Britain to seek asylum.

In 2021 there has also been a significant increase in the number of Albanians crossing the sea. Some British politicians say migrants from Albania, a European Union candidate, have not suffered persecution but are moving for economic reasons.

Interior minister Suella Braverman, whose ministry oversees migration policy, put the blame firmly on the trafficking gangs.

"Crossing the channel in unseaworthy vessels is a lethally dangerous endeavor," she told parliament.

The refugee charity Care4Calais accused the government of doing nothing to prevent migrant deaths.

"By failing to act, our government has blood on their hands," the charity said in a statement.

Reuters