A desperate African stowaway died early today when he leaped overboard from a cargo ship in pitch darkness, 12 miles off the East Sussex coast.

Wafo Narcis, 25, from Ivory Coast, jumped into the sea after escaping custody on the ship just after 2.30am. He had been locked up after being found on the vessel by crewmen.

After he got free a hunt was launched aboard but Narcis panicked when he was spotted on the upper deck of the container vessel Patricia Delmas, en route from Antwerp, Belgium, to Le Havre in France.

He leaped into the sea after grabbing a lifejacket in the hope of swimming the 12 miles to the shore at Eastbourne.

A huge air-sea search was launched involving the Coastguard helicopter, Eastbourne and Newhaven lifeboats, the car ferry Dieppe and the British warship Lindisfarne.

After more than an hour, the Newhaven-based ferry came across a lifejacket in the main shipping lane. At 3.57am the Lindisfarne, using searchlights, found Narcis's body floating off Beachy Head and took it on board.

As the protection vessel had no doctor his body was flown to the Eastbourne District General Hospital, where Narcis was formally pronounced dead.

A Dover Coastguard spokesman said: "What he was thinking of when he jumped overboard to swim 12 miles ashore in darkness is anyone's guess.

"It appears he panicked after being seen by the master on the ship's upper deck and decided to make a swim for shore.

"Although he grabbed a lifejacket it didn't prove much use as he was so far out at sea. But the Lindisfarne crew did extremely well to find his body in pitch darkness in the water."

The French-registered Patricia Delmas later continued on to Le Havre with her cargo of containers.

An Eastbourne RNLI spokesman said: "It was a huge operation in darkness but everyone worked well together."