Migrant picked up by Channel ferry
A CHANNEL ferry was forced to turn around on its way to England after coming across a migrant in a wetsuit trying to swim to the UK.
The asylum seeker, a man in his 30s, suffered severe hypothermia attempting to cross one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
Crew on the Dover-bound P&O Pride of Canterbury spotted the “distressed” swimmer at 10.40am on Monday, 11 miles north of Calais.
They launched a fast-rescue boat to save him from the water before he was handed over to the French Navy and airlifted to hospital.
Two migrants are known to have died this year trying to cross the Channel, including an Iraqi man who drowned after trying to use plastic bottles as a life jacket and wearing diving fins.
A woman also drowned after falling overboard from a small boat travelling to the UK.
A further two vessels carrying 31 migrants, including three children, came into Kent in the early hours of Monday. The inflatable boats had been taking on water when they were rescued by Border
Force officers as temperatures plummeted to just 4C (39F).
French authorities issued a warning to migrants over the risks of crossing
‘The casualty was taken from the water alive and the French authorities have sent a helicopter to attend to him’
the Channel. “The maritime prefect of the English Channel and the North Sea warns migrants who are planning to cross the Channel that it is one of the busiest areas in the world and therefore dangerous to human life,” the Pas-decalais authorities said in a statement.
A spokesman for P&O Ferries said: “The crew of one of our ships travelling from Calais to Dover identified an individual in distress in the water.
“They launched a fast-rescue boat to assist. The casualty was taken from the water alive and the French authorities have sent a helicopter to attend to him from this point.”
The crossings have come despite the Government investing millions of pounds in security measures.
Record numbers of migrants have made it into the country since the crisis took hold last November.
In August, 336 migrants made it into Britain – including 86 in one day – while a woman drowned after falling overboard during a crossing. Her body was found in Dutch waters weeks after the incident.
The French have stopped fewer than half of all migrant boats intercepted in the Channel this year.
A total of 237 vessels were picked up in the Channel in the first 10 months of 2019 – but only 99 of them were stopped by the French, figures obtained by the BBC revealed.