Nearly 1,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the United Kingdom in small makeshift boats on Saturday, the British Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday (September 4th). According to official figures, 960 people made the perilous crossing aboard twenty boats, bringing the total number of crossings since the beginning of the year to more than 26,000.
On Friday September 2, 221 people had reached the United Kingdom after crossing the Channel aboard makeshift boats, in one of the busiest straits in the world. The number of these crossings is on track to beat the 2021 record, when 28,500 people arrived on British soil. Such crossings have multiplied since 2018 in the face of the increasing lockdown of the French port of Calais and the Channel Tunnel.
Controversial agreement with Rwanda
A recent British parliamentary report estimated that the total could reach 60,000 this year, despite repeated promises from the British Conservative government, which has made the subject a priority since Brexit, which is paying millions to France to help it strengthen surveillance of the coasts and which multiplies the measures to harden the reception of migrants.
London has concluded a very controversial agreement with Rwanda to send asylum seekers arriving by such boats on British soil to this East African country. Although none of these deportations has yet taken place – a first flight planned for June was canceled after a decision by the European Court of Human Rights – the candidates to succeed Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, both promised to continue this policy.
