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Border police officers bring migrants to Dover in Kent in the English Channel (symbolic image)
Photo: Gareth Fuller / dpa
About 90 people were arrested by the French authorities in the English Channel over the weekend while trying to get to the UK.
The migrants on three boats in distress were rescued at different times of the day on Saturday near Dunkirk, as the sea prefecture responsible for the English Channel and the North Sea announced.
The police arrested two suspected people smugglers.
According to the authorities, some of the migrants were “slightly hypothermic”.
All people were brought back to the French coast and received by the border police.
The fire brigade was also involved in supplying the migrants.
On Sunday night, around thirty other migrants were discovered on a beach near the Bay of Somme, about one hundred kilometers south of Sangatte.
Two men were arrested.
You are suspected of being a smuggler.
An Iraqi admitted to transporting migrants who wanted to go to England.
The second man, a Pole, brought the equipment necessary for a crossing, such as a rubber dinghy and life jackets, to the beach in his vehicle, as the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais explained.
More and more people are daring the dangerous crossing
Since the end of 2018, the number of illegal crossings in the English Channel has multiplied despite warnings from the authorities about the dense traffic and low temperatures on the waterway.
According to the Prefect of the Sea, Philippe Dutrieux, around 15,400 migrants dared the dangerous crossing between January 1st and August 31st.
3,500 people were rescued from the distress at sea and brought back to the French coast.
In comparison, around 9,500 migrants attempted to cross the English Channel in 2020.
In 2019 there were 2,300 people, 600 in 2018.
France and Great Britain have long argued about how to deal with migrants.
London had committed in July to pay 63 million euros for France to tighten controls and prevent the risky crossings.
lau / AFP
