After several weeks of unfavorable weather conditions, many migrants tried this weekend to cross to England. According to the British authorities, 972 people managed to cross the English Channel. Hundreds more have been rescued at sea.
After several weeks during which conditions no longer allowed crossing the English Channel, this weekend was marked by a large number of crossing attempts led by smugglers, taking on board migrants trying to cross to England. The maritime prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea announced that it had carried out several rescue operations on Friday November 11 and Saturday November 12, to assist three sinking boats, with a total of 142 people rescued.
These rescue operations were carried out respectively by a speedboat from the national sea rescue company, assisted by Belgian relief; by a building of the French Navy; and by a French customs patrolman. The castaways were escorted to the ports of Dunkirk and Calais where they were taken care of by the border police, and the emergency services, SDIS or SAMU depending on the case.
“They refuse the help that is brought to them”
For her part, the mayor (LR) of Calais Natacha Bouchart declared on BFMTV on Saturday evening: “Since the beginning of the evening, 14 crossing attempts have been made, […] which corresponds to around 500 refugee migrants, mostly of Syrian, Kurdish or Afghan nationality, who have more means to pay for the crossings“. The chosen one confides having witnessed the rescue of a boat of 50 people, then taken care of in an aid station on the beach.
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“The migrants are then sheltered by the State services in Dunkirk or Calais, but very often they refuse the help that is brought to them. In these boats, smugglers or coxswains advise not to follow the humanitarian aid offered to them.she added, adding that the migrants rescued before her eyes only stayed four minutes in the aid station, before being re-embarked by the smugglers to try to cross the following night.
On Saturday morning, clashes took place when the police tried to prevent crossings near Gravelines. The border police and the national police of the Dunkirk police station intervened to repel an attempt to cross towards the United Kingdom, and in return suffered a “cobblestone“, according to the place Beauvau which nevertheless welcomes a “successful operation“. “It was a normal immigration enforcement operation.“, specifies for its part the prefecture of the North, which indicates that among the dozens of police officers present, some have indeed “faces fierce resistancefrom migrants. No police officer was injured according to the first information collected, and the police did not make any arrests.
40,000 crossings since the start of the year
On the British side, it is estimated that the number of migrants who made the perilous crossing exceeded the 40,000 mark on Sunday, a record, according to the Ministry of Defense. This weekend alone, 972 people crossed the English Channel in 22 small boats on Saturday, bringing the total since the start of the year to 40,885. 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.
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. 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, calling “invasion“the influx of migrants arriving in the United Kingdom, remarks deemed”horribleby the UN.
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