Channel migrants top 30,000 this year
Record figures broken for seventh month in a row, helped by huge influx from Albania using small boats
CHANNEL migrant crossings have broken records for seven successive months as the annual total passed 30,000 for the first time yesterday.
More than 500 men, women and children are estimated to have reached the UK in small boats yesterday, taking the total for September past 5,300.
That makes this month already the third highest month on record for crossings, surpassed only by this August, when 8,704 reached the UK – more than the whole of 2020 – and last November, when 6,878 migrants made the perilous 21-mile journey across the Channel.
Only in February, when poor weather and rough seas curtailed trips, was the figure lower than previous years, with just 144 migrants reaching the UK.
It means crossings in 2022 are on course to be double the 28,526 migrants who reached the UK last year, and six times the 8,704 arrivals in 2020.
The surge since spring has been fuelled by increasing numbers of Albanians crossing the Channel.
Albanians now account for up to 60 per cent of crossings, with some 9,000 expected to have reached the UK by the end of this month. Some 2,000 are said to be massed in camps or bed and breakfast accommodation in Dunkirk while seeking to cross.
The number being packed into larger dinghies by the people smugglers has also increased from an average of 28 in 2021 to 44 this year.
Last week, 38 people had to be rescued from the Channel when their boat sank seven miles off the south coast. A paramedic was airlifted by a coastguard helicopter to a life raft to resuscitate one of the migrants who had stopped breathing after falling into the sea.
Government officials said it was “remarkable” that there has not been a repeat of the tragedy last November in which 27 men, women and children drowned when a dinghy capsized.
Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover, warned of an increased risk of a tragedy as winter closes in. “The numbers of arrivals are concerning,” she said.
“It’s vital to see the small boats crisis brought to an end as the seas will become colder and rougher as we head into autumn and winter.”
Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, has said tackling the Channel migrant crisis will be one of her “clear priorities”. “This is not just a manifesto pledge, people are dying,” she told staff, as she promised to take a “firmer line” against people traffickers.
Liz Truss has pledged to expand the plan to send migrants to claim asylum in Rwanda to other countries and take a tougher line with France to prevent more crossing attempts, as well as keeping the Royal Navy in charge of the Channel operation with Border Force.
However, the Rwanda flights have been put on hold by a judicial review over their legality.
Young children wrapped in blankets were among the estimated 500-plus migrants brought ashore yesterday. People wearing winter coats, some carrying children, climbed down from a RNLI lifeboat and on to the beach at Dungeness, Kent. They then boarded buses and were taken to be processed. Others were brought into Dover.
Before yesterday’s 500 arrived, the Ministry of Defence updated its total for the year to 29,848 migrants.