At the risk of their lives, more than 4,600 migrants have reached England illegally across the Channel aboard dinghies since the start of the year, a record for the first three months of the year despite promises from the Conservative government to put an end to these crossings.
According to figures published Wednesday by the British Home Office, 4,644 people, all nationalities combined, made this perilous crossing in the first quarter, an increase of 23% compared to the same period last year (3,700 ).
The last record was set in 2022, with 4,548 crossings between the beginning of January and the end of March.
At least seven deaths this year
On Tuesday alone, 338 people reached the English coast in these boats, most often inflatable boats loaded with dozens of passengers.
Since the start of the year, at least seven migrants, including a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old teenager, have died at sea and on a canal while trying to reach England.
Read alsoCrossing the Channel: at the beginning of March, 78 migrants rescued in a few hours in the Strait of Pas-de-Calais
“There is greater and greater risk-taking” and “the coming year does not bode well,” the French migrant aid association Utopia 56 warned at the beginning of March, according to which the pace of deaths since the start of the year reached a level not seen in three years.
Since his arrival at Downing Street a year and a half ago, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made the fight against irregular immigration one of his priorities, insisting that he wants to “stop the boats”.
In 2023, a total of nearly 30,000 migrants crossed the Channel illegally, a figure down sharply compared to the record reached in 2022 (45,000), which the government highlights in its report.
Any increase in arrivals on British soil risks weakening the Conservatives a few months before the legislative elections, for which the Labor opposition is well ahead in the polls.
On Monday, the Ministry of the Interior launched a campaign on social networks to dissuade the growing number of Vietnamese nationals from attempting to cross the Channel.
The Home Office has launched a social media campaign targeting Vietnamese nationals to deter them from illegally migrating to the UK on small boats across the English Channel.
On #BBCBreakfast Simon Jones spoke to Home Secretary James Cleverly https://t.co/5KkDdw99Pc pic.twitter.com/rpTXeLv2pL
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) March 25, 2024
The government's controversial bill to expel migrants to Rwanda also faces resistance from the upper house of Parliament, the Lords, which wishes to soften the text.