Since the beginning of this year, 9,988 people have sailed across the English Channel in small boats and landed in the UK. The data was released this Saturday by the British government, citing the British newspaper “The Guardian”.
In the north of France, the number of people fleeing the beaches between the cities of Calais and Dunkirk has been increasing in recent months. Just last Friday, the Minister of Defense – who had been overseeing the portfolio for a few weeks, and previously the Ministry of the Interior – a boat with 40 people landed on British shores.
The number of persons crossing the English Channel in inappropriate boats has increased since last year. Earlier, immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees traveled to the north of France and tried to hide in cargo ships or trucks passing through the Eurotnell. In 2021, 28,526 people came to the UK via the English Channel, and it was in November of that year that one of the biggest recent accidents at this crossing took place, in which 27 people, including children, died.
The numbers for 2022 and 2021 are significantly higher than for 2020 (8466), 2019 (1842) or 2018 (299).
