On November 24th last year, an inflatable dinghy carrying at least 33 migrants across the Channel from France to England took on water and sank, leaving just two survivors. The bodies of 27 people were recovered, and at least four others were never found, including that of the 18-year-old brother of Zana Mamand Mohammad. He travelled to Paris from Iraq this month to meet with French investigators who have established that rescue services were repeatedly called for help, but failed to respond. “How could the French and English authorities have left children, women and men die at sea while for hours they had raised the alarm about their sinking?” he asked in an interview with Mediapart.
A gendarmerie report into the deaths of 27 migrants whose boat sank in the Channel en route to England from France last November has found that the Calais coastguard failed to respond to several earlier distress calls, opening the possibility of prosecution proceedings, according to French press reports.
On August 22nd, a total of 1,295 migrants landed on the shores of southern England from France, a record daily figure, bringing the number of people who have made the same perilous crossing of the Channel so far this year to more than 22,500. Migrant smuggling gangs typically demand 3,000 euros per person for a place on the flimsy dinghies and key to the logistics of these networks are ‘mules’ who transport the boats and equipment, often from Germany, to the French coast. Camille Polloni travelled to the northern French city of Lille to follow the trial last week of one of them, whose lawyer said he was a “Mister average who works every day”.
A total of 1,295 migrants in 27 small boats crossed the Channel from France to England on Monday according to the UK defence ministry, marking the highest number ever recorded in a single day, while the more than 22,500 people who have made the perilous crossing so far this year is almost double the numbers recorded over the same period in 2021.
Close to 700 people in small boats were recorded on Monday to have clandestinely crossed the Channel to England from France, while the French authorities intercepted two boats carrying 70 people attempting the same journey.
The British government has announced the launching of a detailed investigation into the drowning last November of 27 people, three of whom were children, during their clandestine crossing of the Channel from France to England, following legal action by lawyers acting for several of the victims' families who suspect 'serious failings' in rescue operations.
A man believed to be of Sudanese origin has died and 30 other people were rescued on Friday after a dinghy attempting to cross the Channel to the UK ran into difficulty close to the French coast.
All of the 27 bodies recovered after the sinking in the Channel last month of an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants attempting to reach the UK from France were finally identified last week, when official permits were issued for their burials. The dead were from seven different countries, to where their families want their remains to be returned. But, as Nejma Brahim and Sarah Brethes report, the French state will only provide for burials in France, and the costs involved of repatriating the bodies are beyond the relatives’ resources.
In the wake of the loss of at least 27 lives in the sinking last week of a boat carrying migrants sailing from France to Britain, French interior minister Gérald Darmanin said the British government must 'open up a legal immigration route' because asylum-seekers have 'no other choice' than to cross the Channel in clandestine conditions.
In the French port of Calais, relatives and friends of those lost in the sinking of a dinghy in the Channel last Wednesday, when at least 27 people died as they attempted a clandestine crossing to Britain, are desperate for answers about what happened.
British junior minister Damian Hinds, whose responsibilities include border control, has said cooperation with France on the subject of clandestine migrant crossings of the Channel "is strong", downplaying the angry response of President Emmanuel Macron to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Twitter post of new proposals for tackling the crisis, which was heightened last week by the deaths of at least 27 people in seas off Calais.
French President Emmanuel Macron described as 'not serious' UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's choice of using Twitter to set out policy propositions to France over clandestine crossings of the Channel, while an invitation for Home Secretary Priti Patel to attend a meeting in Calais on the issue has been withdrawn.
