Latest news with #peopleSmugglers
Daily Mail
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
French police slash up more small boats to stop migrants crossing the Channel - but that didn't prevent 900 coming over in last two days
Despite French police slashing people smugglers' boats in an aim to discourage dangerous journeys across the Channel, it hasn't deterred 900 migrants making the journey in the last two days. This comes after the announcement of Keir Starmer 's new deal which allows Britain to send some migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats back to France. A total of five boats carrying 353 came people crossed the English Channel yesterday and 573 arrived in 10 boats on Thursday, according to government data. MailOnline yesterday reported that only a day after unveiling the scheme alongside Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister was facing objections from Europe and charities that helped ground the Tories ' Rwanda plan. The new scheme was condemned by campaigners, who said they would support court cases brought by small-boat arrivals chosen to be sent back to France. A border union boss said the legal challenges could take a year. Brussels ominously warned that it was assessing whether the scheme complied with the 'spirit and the letter of the law', while governments including Italy were said to be harbouring 'huge doubts' about its legality. It came as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper refused to say how many of the thousands arriving by dinghy will be removed under the pilot scheme, amid fears it could be even fewer than the 50 a week suggested by French officials this week. Migrants waiting in Calais camps on Thursday laughed off any suggestions the deal was a deterrent, and were already seemingly aware of how to defy attempts to send them back. On Thursday evening, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Mail: 'This pathetic arrangement may be sunk by legal challenges from activist lawyers and irresponsible charities who want to facilitate illegal immigration into the UK. 'With illegal immigration across the Channel so far this year hitting record levels, Keir Starmer must now be bitterly regretting his foolish decision to cancel the Rwanda deterrent scheme before it even started. 'After two years of legal challenges and legislation, the scheme was ready to go, but Starmer cancelled it just days before the first plane was due to take off last July. 'This would have enabled 100 per cent of the illegal immigrants to be immediately removed without judicial interference. 'The boats would soon have stopped. But Starmer is too weak and too mentally enslaved by his human rights lawyer friends to do what is needed to protect our country's borders.' Downing Street insisted the controversial 'one in, one out' agreement was legally sound and that Brussels supported it. But fearing that returned migrants could head to Italy, the country's interior minister told Sky News: 'We know the EU Commission is still evaluating the agreement, and EU countries, including us, have huge doubts about security and legal aspects of the deal.' A spokesman for the commission said: 'On the specific envisaged co-operation between France and the United Kingdom, the commission will assess the concrete modalities of this co-operation. Today a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to the Border Force compound in Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel There is also no guarantee that after being stopped on their journey that migrants will not try again. Pictured: A group of people thought to be migrants are brought to a Border Force compound in Kent this morning 'And, of course, we continue to work with France and the UK, as well as other EU member states, to support solutions that are compatible with the spirit and the letter of EU law.' A YouGov poll yesterday found 23 per cent of people strongly opposed the scheme, compared to 34 per cent of people who said they 'somewhat' support the scheme. It has been a decade since a sporadic number of boats with migrants on board arriving off the Kent coast from France was reported in the media. At the time, the focus was mainly on the thousands of attempts by migrants in northern France, who were attempting to stowaway on lorries and ferries to the UK. In the nearby Calais Jungle thousands of people, including children, were living under canvass in a camp which was later cleared by the French authorities. But as security was tightened around the ports and Eurotunnel, within three years, significant numbers were using small boats instead to make the dangerous crossing. The cost for a single small boat journey can cost upwards of £1,500 for a single person with no guarantee that the journey will be a success. In Gravelines – where the Mail has witnessed multiple 'taxi boats', which pick up migrants already in the water, while police stand by barred from acting through fear of causing drownings – deputy mayor Alain Boonefaes said the scheme was unfeasible. Despite French police slashing people smugglers' boats in an aim to discourage dangerous journeys across the Channel, it hasn't deterred 900 migrants making the journey in the last two days The cost for a single small boat journey can cost upwards of £1,500 for a single person with no guarantee that the journey will be a success. Police deflate a boat with knives Referring to increasing disputes between people-smuggling gangs and penniless migrants, Mr Boonefaes went on: 'The residents are starting to get angry – some see campfires at the bottom of their gardens. Others have heard gunshots.' He added that he had opposed a British proposal to put a barrier across Gravelines' broad canal to the sea, where many of the taxi dinghies are launched – because it could make a sea rescue missions difficult, and interfere with the activities of a sailing school. With such disagreement over tactics, it is perhaps no wonder the migrants are laughing. There is also no guarantee that after being stopped on their journey that migrants will not try again.
Daily Mail
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
French police slash migrant boat and drag passengers back to shore just as they attempt to set across the Channel for Britain
Migrants on the shores of Northern France fumed this morning when police slashed their boat and dragged them back to the beach just moments before they set sail for Britain. Dramatic footage shows dozens of migrants and asylum seekers boarding an inflatable dingy as it approaches the shallow waters. But before they can set off on their perilous journey across the English Channel, police descend on the beach. Taking off their police vests, the cops rush into the sea and quickly pierce through the inflatable boat with a knife. Passengers erupt in anger as the boat deflates, causing many of them to fall into the water. Furious screams can be heard as they scurry to get back to the beach, while children can be seen crying. All the migrants on board managed to make their way safely back to shore. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said it was a 'different' and 'welcome' strategy that was part of wider plans for French police to start intercepting migrants in shallow waters. The shocking scenes on the French coast this morning demonstrate the huge challenge authorities face in trying to stop people smugglers from transporting migrants to the UK. French police are prevented by law from intervening once a boat is in the water. But in today's instance, cops reportedly deemed the dinghy to be close enough to the shore. It is not the first time, however, that French police have deflated migrant boats. Last month, cops were seen single-handedly foiling an attempt by migrants to cross the Channel in a dingy by stabbing it with a knife. Video footage showed how a group of refugees and migrants aboard the boat were attempting to follow a short stream leading to the sea just metres away, as French police watched them. One officer was then seen holding a sharp implement, believed to be a knife, and stabbing the sides of the boat to make it unusable. Images later showed the crumpled boat completely deflated with life jackets scattered around, as those on the boat left the scene and returned to a camp where they had been staying. It comes as France and Britain hope to unveil measures at their summit next week that will reportedly allow French police to intercept such 'taxi boats' - a new phenomenon - up to 300 metres from shore. Police, activists and migrants interviewed by Reuters were sceptical such a plan would work. 'I just don't see how this could ever be implemented,' said Julien Soir, a police union representative in the northern city of Lille. 'Getting it up and running is simply impossible.' He said police were already stretched covering 112 miles of coastline and lack the equipment and training needed for seaborne operations. Police also fear drowning if they fall in the water with heavy equipment, or personal legal liability if migrants die or are injured during an intervention. Angele Vettorello, a coordinator at the Utopia 56 charity in Calais, said numbers were rising despite more French police patrolling beaches, including with British-sponsored drones. She said the proposed measures would only make a dangerous crossing - last year 73 migrants died navigating what is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes - more perilous. If implemented, it would 'lead to even more deaths ... more distress,' she said. Asked if France would go ahead with the plan, an aide to President Emmanuel Macron told reporters announcements would be saved for the summit on Thursday, adding that both countries were working to intensify efforts to prevent crossings and break the traffickers' lucrative economic model. The influx of migrants has helped Nigel Farage's Reform UK overtake Starmer's Labour Party in polls. Farage, a right-wing populist and longtime immigration hard-liner, has proposed using the Navy to intercept migrant vessels and take them back to France. Lawyers say this could only be done if France agreed. Nearly 20,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Britain via small boats so far this year, a 50% increase compared to the same period in 2024. French and British authorities blame the spike on unusually good weather. Peter Walsh, from Oxford University's Migration Observatory, said maritime interception may stop more migrants but would not affect long-term trends behind the migrant surge, including multiple conflicts and the allure of English-speaking Britain. Britain also wants to negotiate a returns agreement with France, which it had before it left the European Union. At a filthy migrant camp near Dunkirk, Reuters spoke with several migrants who were unaware of the new proposal. They said it wouldn't stop them from trying to cross. Israrullah Lodin, 26, left Afghanistan in 2021 after his family's work with the U.S. army irked the Taliban. He had failed to cross three times; twice he was stopped by police and once his boat had problems. Lodin dreamed of working in a UK fulfilment warehouse. Nothing would stop him from getting there. 'We are not afraid to die,' he said. 'I have to reach my destination.' Nisarahmad Afghan, 23, had been a migrant almost all his adult life, having left his home region of Nangarhar four years ago. He had made two failed attempts to cross, both foiled by police. 'Until I succeed, I will keep trying,' he said. 'I've passed through many dangerous roads. I will pass this one too.
Daily Mail
02-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Chaos on French shores as 'people trafficker' is seen WHIPPING terrified migrants as they scramble to board boat bound for the UK
Migrants were whipped by apparent people smugglers and a desperate mother with a baby hauled onto a dinghy amid extraordinary out-of-control scenes in France this morning. The Mail beat French police to the shore at small-boat hotspot Gravelines beach at 5.30am, where large groups of migrants were running the mile down to the beach to reach the waves. The group, all young men, were up to their knees in the water as a dinghy emerged from a canal into the sea, and turned back to the shoreline towards them. As the 'taxi-boat' dinghy pulled nearer, already half-full with previously collected passengers, the migrants on the beach were able to climb aboard unhindered. But in what appeared to be a measure of harsh crowd control, to prevent the 30-foot rubber boat from capsizing, a people smuggler's assistant in the water repeatedly whipped migrants with a cane if they tried to climb on too fast. He was seen furiously beating the terrified migrants who were scrambling to avoid the lashings, but could not afford to be left behind. A second boat arrived later this morning. This time, the migrants waiting to climb aboard were not young men, but vulnerable mothers with babies and small children. One hysterical woman tumbled into the water, clutching her screaming toddler wrapped in a life vest to her breast, and made a break for the already overloaded dinghy. Arms outstretched in desperation, she fell onto the rear of the inflatable boat, offering her baby to an assistant who pushed him on behind her. They were the last to make it on board. The dinghy promptly motored away from the shore, leaving wailing families who missed their chance to board standing helpless in waist-deep saltwater in heart-rending scenes. Families tried to board the small boat but were unsuccessful in boarding and made their way back to the shore to try another day The dystopian events further illustrate Labour's abject failure to protect Britain's borders. A record 20,000 small-boat migrants have reached Britain in the first half of this year - a milestone not reached until mid-August in previous years. Small-boat arrivals are up by 48 per cent on the same period in 2024. The landmark, reached this week, comes almost exactly a year after Labour took power and scrapped the Conservatives' Rwanda asylum deal, which was designed to deter migrants from mounting perilous Channel crossings. Astonishingly, this morning, while the four officers watching with dry boots only interacted with the migrants by using their phones to video them, they did question just two men – your reporter and photographer. They demanded identification documents, and photographed them, before telephoning our names and employer to HQ. Asked why they were quizzing us and not the migrants, one officer replied with a question: 'Did you come here because you had advance information?' It was a startling question – because for more than a year Gravelines beach, between Calais and Dunkirk, has been a key spot for the now near-ubiquitous 'taxi boat' technique, where boats are launched at a quiet spot inland, then sail to the sea out of a waterway, such as Gravelines' impressive canal, to pick up clients typically paying a little over £1,000 a fare. And boats had left Gravelines on Monday, while on Tuesday the Mail had previously beat police to the scene of a migrant pick-up by a dinghy a mile inland here. We did not need 'information' that a launch would happen here – it was obvious one was likely. The dinghy meanwhile seemed to be heading to England at 5.45am as we watched – but it soon turned back to shore, as we saw another group of around 30 migrants waiting at another spot around a mile to the east on the beach. We and the officers hurried to the spot – but again many boarded unhindered, before this time it set off for England for good. One officer, videoing, said of the group: 'There's a lot of children in this group. It could be dangerous.' Another officer was less concerned, laughing as he said: 'They will arrive in England soon – God save the King'. By 6am the dinghy was heading to the horizon, followed eventually by a police motorboat, with a French military corvette hovering in the distance. The four police – who said the first they knew of the dinghy was when they were radioed and told it had emerged from Gravelines' canal – walked off the beach. But the Mail did not believe it was over – and at 6.40am an entirely new group of migrants, maybe three dozen, suddenly emerged and walked openly along the top of Gravelines' extensive dunes, some wearing bright lifejackets, towards the shoreline, all looking out to sea. Clearly they had been told another dinghy was on its way. Mist was falling over the sea, and ferry and shipping foghorns sounding as weather conditions took a turn for the worse – particularly for an illicit rubber dinghy – but soon that second taxi-boat arrived, again apparently from the Gravelines canal. Already maybe 20 migrants were aboard. As it neared the shore, maybe a mile west beyond the last pick-up point of the first dinghy, and in front of a looming nuclear power station, the migrants came out of the dunes in tightly marshalled groups. First ten at a time, then in several carefully staggered groups of six, they were sent to the dinghy in waist-deep water. There, an organiser in a green hooded jacket stood in the waves ensuring those already aboard were grouped to the front of the rippling boat, so new passengers could pushed up by him, and pulled up by those helping in the dinghy. Apparently full, with, naturally, no police in sight, the dinghy appeared to be heading for Dover – but it suddenly turned back, and we saw yet another group of migrants half a mile to the west back along the huge beach. And this was a clearly a vulnerable group – an African woman with a young toddler to her back was particularly distressed as she ran through the waves towards the returning dinghy. She appeared to be successfully hauled aboard with her child. Behind her was a struggling group including another toddler, young children to two grey-bearded men in their 60s. There were family groups, of parents in their fifties, with an adult child, the mother falling in the sea and crying as she was hauled to her feet. Ultimately, the dinghy finally turned away for England, having taken only a small number of this final struggling group on board. Among those sat on the sides were several with only flimsy children's toy rubber rings as utterly inadequate protection. Those who did make it on board took a moment to pose for a photo, waving at the photographer on the shore. An Afghan man aged 25 was among those turned away. He told the Mail: 'They wouldn't let me on because I didn't have a life jacket. 'But I want to get to England. I have no documents in France. Maybe tomorrow.' A distraught woman was visibly devastated when she couldn't get onto the boat, wailing in the shallows.
Times
01-07-2025
- Climate
- Times
Migrant Channel crossings hit a record 20,000 in six months
More than 20,000 migrants have crossed the Channel this year, setting a new record high for the first six months of a year. In June 5,170 migrants crossed the Channel in 80 boats, which was also a record month for this year. Home Office figures showed Border Force picked up 879 people in 13 dinghies on Monday, the third highest number of arrivals on a single day this year as people smugglers took advantage of record high temperatures and calm conditions in the Channel to ferry people across. It made the annual tally so far 19,982 in 343 boats — but hundreds more followed on Tuesday, taking the total to more than 20,000. The Home Office will publish the precise number to have crossed on Wednesday.
Arab News
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Tiny Greek island appeals for help after migrant increase
ATHENS: Greece's southernmost island is facing a significant increase in migration from Libya, its mayor said on Tuesday, warning it does not have the means to cope. Lilian Stefanakis said the rise was 'a heavy burden' for Gavdos, which is just 30 square kilometers (11.5 square miles), has 70 residents off-season and only a handful of shops. Gavdos lies off the southern coast of neighboring Crete and is about 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the Libyan city of Tobruk across the Mediterranean Sea. 'We don't have the capacity to manage these flows,' Stefanakis told Greek public radio Ert. 'Institutional solutions must be found.' According to the port police, 7,300 migrants have arrived on Crete and Gavdos since the start of this year compared to 4,935 for the whole of 2024. Since the start of this month, 2,550 arrivals have been recorded. Migrants leaving Libya hope to reach the European Union and follow instructions from people-smugglers, who for the past few months have been directing them to Crete and tiny Gavdos. Crete does not have any camps to register asylum seekers and offers only emergency shelters for migrants before they are transferred to mainland Greece. 'The smugglers will not set the rules,' Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday, promising to raise the issue about increased migration flows from Libya at the next European summit. 'Navy ships will be sent outside Libya's territorial waters in order to control illegal migrant flows,' he added. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis later clarified that two military frigates would be sent. Stefanakis said a vessel from the European Union's border agency Frontex was deployed and called for further reinforcement on the island. The northeastern islands in the Aegean Sea opposite Turkiye have traditionally been entry points to Greece and Europe for undocumented migrants and camps have been built.
