After an already record year 2021, attempts to illegally cross the Channel by migrants wanting to reach England exploded in the first half of 2022, the Interior Ministry said on Monday June 20, against a backdrop of tougher migration policy. British side.
Between 1is January and June 13, 2022, “777 crossing events and crossing attempts in small boats involving 20,132 candidates (+ 68% compared to the same period in 2021) were identified”according to the ministry.
In 2021, these crossing attempts, which are generally made by inflatable boats from the northern coast between Calais and Dunkirk, had reached a « record »with 52,000 people having attempted it and 28,000 migrants having succeeded, according to data from Place Beauvau communicated in January.
Asylum seekers deported to Rwanda
“It should be noted that the rate of defeats is constantly rising with 61.39% of sea crossings prevented by the French internal security forces (+ 4.2 points compared to the rate for 2021) and 10,090 individuals ( + 65%) arrested since the beginning of the year”said Monday the Ministry of the Interior.
The United Kingdom continues to harden its tone on the subject and has in particular implemented a very controversial strategy consisting in wanting to deport asylum seekers who have arrived illegally on its soil to Rwanda, a country with which it has signed an agreement denounced by NGOs and human rights defenders.
Last Tuesday, a first charter flight which was to convey up to 130 migrants (including Iranians, Iraqis, Albanians or Syrians) to Kigali was prevented in extremis by a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, a decision that the government Briton again qualified this weekend as “scandalous” et « opaque ».