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Dover, UK: A group of people are taken aboard a Border Force vessel following an incident involving a small boat in the English Channel
Photo: Gareth Fuller / dpa
The refugee route from France across the English Channel to Great Britain is dangerous.
Nevertheless, migrants keep getting into small boats and daring to make the crossing.
Now the number of refugees who have reached Great Britain this way within one day has reached a new high.
The British Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday that around 1,295 people had been registered within 24 hours the previous day.
This is the highest number in one day since records began in 2018. The highest number of arrivals to date was on November 11, 2021 with 1185 people.
It was also said that 27 boats had been discovered.
So far this year, more than 22,600 people have made the dangerous crossing, almost twice as many as in the same period last year.
In total, the British authorities counted 28,526 crossings last year.
Parliament report expects around 60,000 crossings this year
The controls on land routes have become stricter as a result of the pandemic and Brexit.
However, the English Channel poses other challenges for the authorities.
Gaining control of one's own borders was one of the central promises of the Brexit campaign.
The British are now backing a controversial agreement with Rwanda.
The deal reached in June with the East African country provides for people who have arrived illegally in the UK to be flown to Rwanda so that they can apply for asylum there.
The pact is controversial.
The United Nations sees this as a breach of international law.
So far, no asylum seekers have been flown there, as the European Court of Human Rights stopped the first planned flight in June with an injunction.
Another judicial review is currently underway.
With the rigid asylum policy, the conservative British government wants to deter as many people as possible from coming to the country at all.
Nevertheless, the number of migrants could continue to rise for the time being.
According to a recently published parliamentary report, around 60,000 people could have made the crossing by the end of the year.
The English Channel is one of the busiest waterways in the world.
A tragic accident happened in November 2021: 27 people died after their rubber boat capsized.
London accuses Paris of not doing enough to stop the canal crossings.
The French government rejects this.
asc/dpa/AFP