At least 853 migrants crossed the Channel illegally to the English coast on Wednesday, the British Home Office said on Friday, a new record bringing the number of people who have taken this route to more than 21,000 this year.
Despite promises from the British government to make these crossings “impractical”, their number has grown steadily since the end of 2018. The last daily record was last August with 828 crossings.
More than 21,000 people since the start of the year
If the ministry does not communicate a cumulative report, according to the count by the British press agency PA, more than 21,000 people have crossed the Strait, one of the busiest in the world, since the start of the year. aboard small boats.
That is to say much more than double than during the whole of last year (more than 8,000).
On the French side, from January to the end of October 2021, the maritime prefecture records “1,008 events linked to attempts or crossings to the United Kingdom by sea involving 24,655 people”, of which “5,713 castaways were rescued”.
Read also Channel: a makeshift boat with around forty migrants capsizes, killing at least one
Thursday morning, the body of a migrant was found "in a 3.5-meter boat filled with water on a beach in Wissant" in northern France, said a source close to the investigation.
At his side, two people "in a state of severe hypothermia" were taken to hospital.
French efforts considered insufficient by London
The day before, a migrant died, another was missing and 779 people were rescued at sea following the sinking of several makeshift boats in the Channel, according to the maritime prefecture.
Tightening immigration conditions is a major promise from Boris Johnson's government following Brexit, which seeks to restrict access to asylum.
Illegal crossings are a regular subject of tension between Paris and London, the British authorities considering insufficient the efforts undertaken on the French side to prevent them, despite the payment of financial aid.