Crossing the Channel: 185 Migrants Rescued in Two Days

Between Friday and Saturday, 185 migrants were taken care of by French emergency services as they tried to reach England aboard makeshift boats

Between Friday and Saturday, 185 migrants were taken care of by French emergency services as they tried to reach England aboard makeshift boats. Despite the strengthening of patrols, Channel crossings continue, with already more than 36,300 arrivals since January.

One hundred and eighty-five migrants were rescued between Friday and Saturday in French waters while trying to reach England aboard clandestine boats, the Channel and North Sea maritime prefecture said on Saturday.

Rescue operations follow one another…

Friday morning, two rescue operations respectively led to the pick-up of 81 passengers from a boat leaving the Bay of Somme, and that of 80 people asking to be rescued following the damage to their boat in off the coast of Équihen-Plage (Pas-de-Calais), indicates the maritime prefecture (Prémar) in a press release.

Finally, during the night from Friday to Saturday, 24 passengers from another boat were picked up during an attempt to cross part of the Slack dunes (Pas-de-Calais), while the other passengers of the The boat wanted to continue their journey. According to official figures from the Home Office (British Home Office), no “small boat”, named after the makeshift boats used for these clandestine attempts to cross the Channel, arrived in England on Friday.

36,300 migrants disembarked since January

Despite the regular strengthening of French resources to prevent these crossings – with substantial financial support from the United Kingdom – these departures have not weakened: more than 36,300 migrants have arrived in England aboard “small boats” since January 1, according to the British authorities. This is almost as much as over the same period in 2022 (37,600), a record year in terms of crossings of the Channel by “small boats”.

At least 27 migrants have died this year during attempted illegal crossings of the French-British border, according to a count based on official data.

A new migration agreement between London and Paris, which came into force in August, provides for exchanges of migrants between the two countries on the principle of “one for one”: for a person returned from the United Kingdom, London accepts the entry of another coming from France, by legal means.

But this system, widely criticized by NGOs and exposed to legal recourse, has only an essentially symbolic significance for the moment, hardly dissuading the vast majority of candidates for exile from attempting clandestine crossings.