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The 27 refugees found dead after a last month had in fact called��,��a French newspaper reported citing police, backing up claims made by two survivors of the tragedy.

Two survivors of the tragedy told Kurdish media network Rudaw that people used their phones to call��authorities on both sides of the Channel��while their rubber dinghy was sinking.��

Mohammed Shekha Ahmad, originally from , said: "We called the French police (...) then we sent our location and they told us: 'You are in English waters, call the English.' We called the British. They told us to call the French."

Mohammed Isa Omar, a survivor of origin, also claimed calls were made to British and French authorities as the boat was sinking. He said they remained in the water for more than ten hours before being rescued.��

Telephone records studied by police showed the two survivors��had made the calls to emergency services, reported Le Monde.��

French authorities have - until now - asserted that a French fishing vessel alerted them to the scene of the disaster on the afternoon of November 24, according to Le Monde. It was this alert that triggered the arrival of French and British emergency services, it was claimed.��

French officials say it is inconceivable that either the British or French coastguards would respond to a call from a boat in distress by telling the caller to phone the other country’s authorities, reported Arab News.��

At least 27 people died in last month's Channel��tragedy, including three minors and one pregnant woman. The majority of the victims were Iraqi Kurds.��

The incident has sparked over who bears responsibility for the influx of migrants travelling in small boats across the Channel.��

reacted angrily to ’s public call for France to take back migrants who reach the UK. He accused Johnson of not being “serious”.��

Johnson said Britain faced “difficulties persuading some of our patterns, particularly the French, to do things in a way that the situation deserves”.��

Refugee charities have called on both governments to ensure safe routes are available for asylum seekers, so that they can

Over 25,000 migrants crossed the English Channel this year, up from around 8,000��in 2020 and around 1,800��in 2019, according to tallies compiled by the BBC using Home Office data.��

Last month’s tragedy was the largest single loss of life in the Channel since the UN migration agency, IOM, started recording data in 2014.