People smugglers reportedly failed to give lifejackets to migrants who later drowned in the Channel.
The depraved smugglers then later tried to lure more migrants into making the deadly crossing.
Six Afghan men died when their rickety dinghy on the way to England took on water off the French coast. Fifty-nine others had to be rescued.
Hours after the deaths, an undercover reporter was assured the crossing was safe and offered passage costing thousands.
On the morning the boat sank, witnesses claimed gunshots could be heard at a camp near Dunkirk when Afghan migrants desperate for a seat on the doomed overcrowded vessel clashed with Kurdish people smugglers after being turned away.
Muhamad, 15, from Afghanistan, told The Times: “There was screaming too. I think there was a fight between Kurds and Afghans, but I am not too sure. I just hid.”
A reporter posing as a migrant, who made contact with a smuggler, was offered two spaces on a dinghy from France for £6,500.
The crook said there would be just 27 others on board, adding: “We do not overcrowd the boat with 60 people like others do.”
When the reporter mentioned the Channel deaths, they brushed it off with assurances their boats were safe.
On the same day, the six Afghan men died, 509 people made the crossing — with some treated by paramedics and taken to hospital.
French officials said the gangs were “saturating” the coastline with boats in order to stretch police resources. Hervé Berville, France’s minister for the sea, said traffickers try to “trigger simultaneous crossings in Dunkirk and Boulogne, to occupy the police”.
He warned: “Put 60 people on a boat in a force three or four wind, and it’s deadly.”
Régis Holy, a skipper on a French lifeboat which helped to recover the bodies on Saturday, confirmed none were wearing a lifejacket. He said: “You don’t get used to it. Handling a body is difficult. It is heavy, the clothes are wet.”
