On this day two years ago, 31 people froze to death in the icy waters off the coast of Kent.

The mass drowning, which was the largest loss of life in the English Channel in decades, happened after a group of asylum seekers crowded into an inflatable craft that was launched from a beach on the French coast on the evening of November 23, 2021, bound for the UK.

After around four hours on the freezing waters of the Dover Strait, the vessel began taking on water.

Twenty-seven bodies were recovered and four are still missing. They included 21 men, seven women, including one who was pregnant, and three children.

Today, two years on from the tragedy, families of the victims have signed an open letter demanding justice.

They are asking why UK authorities failed their loved ones when they made desperate calls for help, and are calling for the introduction of safe routes to prevent further loss of life in the English Channel.

An open letter has been coordinated by a coalition of charities in the refugee sector including Calais Appeal, Care4Calais, Freedom from Torture, Refugee Action, the Refugee Council, Safe Passage and the Scottish Refugee Council.

It said: “On that catastrophic night, their flimsy boat left France at around 10pm, but close to midnight, it began to deflate and sink in the middle of the Channel.

“Between 2am and 4am, the passengers called the French and English authorities many times begging for help. But no one came.

“The French authorities told them they were in British waters, and British officials told them they were in French waters.

“The transcripts of those desperate calls make for difficult reading – one passenger indicates that they are literally ‘in the water’.

“’Yes, but you are in English waters, Sir,’ is the reply.”

At around 3am the boat overturned, tipping all passengers into the water, where some drowned because of the waves.

Over time, others resigned themselves to letting go as they were overwhelmed by the cold.

The letter continued: “Eleven hours later, at 2pm the next day, a French fisherman spotted the bodies in the water and raised the alarm.

“When the French coastguard finally arrived, they found only two survivors.

“We will never let the lives lost that night, or those of loved ones lost since, be forgotten.

“And for their families, we demand justice and change.”

Earlier this month a report into the drownings revealed the full story of the tragedy for the first time.

As a result the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, announced an independent, non-statutory inquiry was to be held to investigate the circumstances of the deaths.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) confirmed that, on the night of the disaster, there were multiple small boats attempting the crossing of the Dover Strait from France to the Kent coast.

With each making multiple calls indicating distress it was “extremely challenging” for the coastguard to locate and identify individual vessels, it found.

Investigators from the MAIB said that, because of the lack of surveillance available, coastguard operators were reliant on “limited information passed to them by French authorities” and mobile phone calls from the occupants of the boats as they tried to establish the exact nature of the unfolding tragedy.

As a result, the report recommends officials at both the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Border Force develop procedures so that effective surveillance is possible when aircraft cannot be sent out to monitor Channel traffic.

The open letter, signed by the victim’s families, ends: “We long for people seeking safety on British shores to be seen as human beings, deserving of rights, compassion and dignity.

“Tragedies like this occur because of the ‘othering’ our politicians insist on – of the dehumanising of sons and fathers, mothers and daughters, friends and family members.

“This rhetoric must change. And so must this government’s policies...

“We demand that the division and fear of anti-migrant rhetoric used by some political leaders is replaced with the empathy and respect that many people and communities across Britain show to refugees every day.

“We can, and must do better: people’s lives depend on it.”

Just two days ago, two more people died trying to make the treacherous crossing, while 58 others were rescued after their boat got into trouble.

As of mid-November, 27,284 people had crossed the English Channel in 2023.