The number of migrants making the perilous crossing of the English Channel in makeshift boats to reach the United Kingdom passed the 40,000 mark on Sunday, a record, said the British Ministry of Defense. According to government figures, 972 people crossed the English Channel in 22 small craft on Saturday, bringing the total since the start of the year to 40,885.
Never have so many migrants – especially Albanians, Iranians and Afghans – made the dangerous crossing. Over the whole of 2021, 28,526 crossings had been recorded. It was already a record.
These rising figures are putting pressure on the government as the Tories have made tackling immigration a top priority since Brexit and the asylum system is more overwhelmed than ever. Successive Tory governments have considered everything, abandoning some illegal or unworkable ideas like pushing boats out of British waters with artificial waves, locking migrants on ocean liners offshore or sending them to remote islands. The latest plan, announced under Boris Johnson, plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda but this plan has stalled.
Point of tension with Paris
The subject is a point of tension with Paris, even if the two countries announced Friday in a joint press release “progress” to find a new agreement on the question. The United Kingdom would be ready to pay an additional 80 million pounds (91 million euros) to France for police reinforcements on French beaches, while British agents would have access to French control centres.
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In the United Kingdom, recent revelations about overcrowded reception centers have caused controversy in a country where the population remains mainly in favor of welcoming migrants. Interior Minister Suella Braverman, far to the right, also shocked by calling the influx of migrants arriving in the United Kingdom an “invasion”, remarks deemed “horrible” by the UN.
Numerous crossing attempts over the weekend
According to a spokeswoman for the maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, “just over 1,200 people would have attempted the crossing over the weekend”. Rescuers came to the aid of 40 shipwrecked people in the night from Friday to Saturday, some of whom were in the water, who had boarded a sinking boat. Significant rescue resources have been deployed, including a Belgian police patrol boat and a helicopter, the maritime prefecture said in a statement.
Saturday morning, 52 exiles were rescued off Pas-de-Calais and brought back to the quay in Calais. Then 50 other people in difficulty in a boat were taken care of and dropped off in Calais, still in the morning. The operations continued on Saturday evening, according to a second press release, with the rescue of 25 migrants off Calais, then on Sunday morning when a pleasure boat reported to the rescue services the presence of “three people at sea, near a boat”.
The maritime route between France and England is one of the busiest in the world, “with more than 400 commercial ships passing through it per day and the weather conditions are often difficult there”, recalls the maritime prefecture. On November 24, 2021, almost a year ago, 27 migrants were killed in the sinking of their boat off Calais, the worst tragedy recorded in the Channel.