‘I saw the patrol boat approach the migrant dinghy, then shepherd it into British waters’
It was shortly after 7am that the French navy’s 105-ton patrol boat came into view. As the P726 Aramis sat quietly on the horizon across the English Channel, we spotted, in front of it, a small shape bobbing in the choppy water.
Sixteen Afghan migrants including four women and two children were struggling against the wind in their dangerously overloaded inflatable and in need of assistance a mile inside French territorial waters.
But instead of bringing the wet and shivering group on board and returning them to France, the French vessel shepherded the boat toward British waters, where they promptly abandoned it – a practice the French have long been accused of doing, but which has never been independently witnessed by a journalist until now.
Over the course of 90 minutes, I watched as the French navy sent out a small boat of their own, initially offering the migrants bottled water and life jackets, before motoring toward Britain, asking the migrants to follow. Sandwiched between France’s largest navy patrol boat, and a Zodiac not much bigger than their own, crewed by gendarmerie in face masks, the group bailed out water furiously as they approached British waters.
And then, in the world’s busiest shipping lane, without so much as a wave goodbye, they were left to fend for themselves.
Despite repeated promises by the French president, interior minister and other top officials, there was no evidence of any cooperation with the British authorities.
Just a few days ago, Emmanuel Macron pledged to “step up” cooperation with the UK “against migrant smugglers”, while Boris Johnson “set out that the UK’S aim was to stop the smuggling operations and prevent boats arriving on our shores.” The pair “agreed to work together in a spirit of cooperation to address the issue.”
But yesterday morning, the French boats simply peeled off with no sign of British Border Force in the area, and the exhausted refugees continued onward, battered by increasing swells.
A bearded man in a dark T-shirt straddled the inflatable hull and dragged his leg in the water as he bailed it out with a milk carton. A teenage girl in a hijab shrieked as a wave washed over her. One man in a lungee – traditional Afghan headgear, shouted to ask which way the UK was. And then a small boy peered out from
beneath a grey hoodie with a beaming smile, giving us the thumbs-up. They were in British waters.
But we could clearly see they were not out of danger – the wind had started to pick up.
For 40 minutes, they sheltered on our lee side, protected from the swell. Behind passed the 9,500-ton Dutch trawler Willem Van Der Zwan. Alongside passed a P&O ferry. In front passed a Grimaldi Lines container ship.
The small craft chugged low in the water, with no captain, no map and no idea how far away Britain was. Until a Border Force Coastal Patrol Vessel appeared, it looked like we would have to rescue the occupants. Despite the UK spending millions on spotter planes, drones and surveillance, it seemed to take a small fishing vessel to alert the British authorities to the deteriorating situation at sea.
When the British patrol arrived at the scene, winds gusted at 28 knots. The migrants were in danger of being swept overboard or sinking.
Finally the group was plucked to safety by officials in PPE suits and face masks. In the sky, a drone from Lydd airport buzzed overhead.
They were taken ashore at Dover, wrapped in foil blankets. A man on the shore tweeted that another “16 ILLEGAL MIGRANTS” had arrived.
The 16 arrivals added to the 6,300 others to come to our shores in 2020 – three times as many as last year.
“They would have gone under if we hadn’t have been there,” said our captain, who did not want to be named. “What the French did was a disgrace.” French authorities last night told The Telegraph: “In view of the number of boats attempting to cross, state resources must assess the level of distress of each of the boats and prioritise according to the needs and risks in which each of the boats are found.” They added that they had brought 24 people in two vessels back to France that day.
September is now the busiest month on record for Channel crossings by migrants, with 1,487 people reaching the UK already.
Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party leader, who was on board with us, said: “We have Priti Patel saying what a fantastic job the French are doing, but what I saw today was the French escorting a boat out of French waters and then just dumping it.
“I am pretty certain that if we hadn’t been there, that boat would have gone down because the wind was getting up and the French didn’t even tell the British authorities it was there.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Our cutting edge aerial assets captured footage of this migrant boat, and the accompanying vessel, and allowed us to monitor the incident as it progressed and gather intelligence and evidence of criminality.”
“We continue to speak with our French counterparts to find ways of returning migrant boats to France – but preservation of life must come first.”