LILLE, France – A migrant was killed during the night of Thursday to Friday after being hit by a freight train on the site of the Channel Tunnel near Calais, firefighters said, taking the death toll there among people trying to reach Britain to 16 since June.

The body was found by firefighters alongside a train platform in Coquelles, northern France. The force of the impact made it immediately impossible to identify the victim’s sex, age or nationality.

Thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East fleeing war and poverty at home and lodged in makeshift camps in the French port of Calais are trying to enter Britain by jumping onto lorries or hiding on trains, disrupting cross-Channel freight and passenger traffic.

The influx has plunged the 28-nation European Union into crisis. Its leaders were discussing their responses at a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.