973 Illegal Immigrants Cross English Channel in One Day
A total of 973 illegal immigrants crossed the English Channel in 17 boats on Saturday, the highest number in a single day so far this year.
According to Home Office figures, that brings the total for 2024 to 26,612, higher than the 25,330 who had arrived by this time last year.
However, the figure is still lower than at the same date in 2022, when 33,611 people had entered the UK illegally crossing the Channel by boat.
Prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region Jacques Billant confirmed on Saturday that the French coastguard had responded to an incident where a boat carrying nearly 90 people suffered engine failure. French authorities recovered 15 people from the vessel including a boy who was unconscious and later died.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau later said that the boy had been "trampled to death."
Similar circumstances resulted in the deaths of a woman and two men in a second incident where a boat with 83 people on board suffered several engine failures, resulting in a panic on board. Billant said some of the occupants had fallen into the sea and were rescued.
Two men and a woman, all in their thirties, were found unconscious at the bottom of the boat and despite the efforts of medics, had died.
The prefect said they were "probably crushed and suffocated during the jostling and drowned in the 40 centimetres of water present in the boat."
The Home Office said the international partnership will enhance the government's strategy to disrupt people smuggling operations upstream, such as by interrupting smuggling routes in transit countries.
"Criminal smuggling gangs who organise small boat crossings undermine our border security and put lives at risk. Our new government is rapidly accelerating cooperation with other countries to crack down on these dangerous gangs," Cooper said in a statement on Oct. 4.
"We live in an age of mass migration. There are millions of people on the move looking to come to our great country. We have to tackle this issue. We will never, never tackle it whilst we remain within the European Convention on Human Rights," Jenrick said.
PA Media contributed to this report.
