More people have made the perilous crossing of the English Channel, just one day after 27 drowned in the deadliest crossing on record.
On Thursday morning, a group of people wearing life jackets was seen huddled together onboard a lifeboat near Dover.
According to France’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, those who drowned on Wednesday included 17 men, seven women, one of whom was pregnant, and three children.
In connection with the fatal crossing, five people have been arrested.
Regional prosecutors, according to Mr. Darmanin, have launched an investigation into aggravated manslaughter.
He stated that two survivors were in critical condition in a French hospital being treated for severe hypothermia. Initially, 31 people were reported dead, but the figure was revised down overnight into Thursday.
On Wednesday, a fishing boat crew discovered several people in the sea off the coast of France.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, told MPs that she had spoken with her French counterpart and offered to put more officers on the ground and that she would continue to push for joint Channel patrols.
She described Wednesday’s incident as “a terrible shock but not a surprise,” adding that “it is also a reminder of how vulnerable people are put in danger when in the hands of criminal gangs.”
Downing Street stated that the continued arrival of people in boats on England’s south coast demonstrated the need to crack down on traffickers.
“It demonstrates that we must step up our efforts with our French counterparts to dismantle this heinous trade that preys on vulnerable people,” said the prime minister’s official spokesperson.
Earlier, Immigration Minister Kevin Foster stated that the UK was determined to destroy the “evil” business model of human traffickers.
Mr. Foster claimed that ruthless criminals were sending people into the dangerous waters of the Channel on flimsy boats that lacked proper equipment.
“Those who organized that boat yesterday would have simply viewed these people… who died as a profit-making opportunity,” he said on BBC Breakfast.
Despite the deaths in the Channel yesterday, crossings have resumed this morning. The RNLI, a lifeboat charity, has brought approximately 40 migrants to Dover.
It’s windy and cold on the water, but the desire to reach the UK remains as strong as ever.
The task of determining the identities of those who died is now underway. This could be a problem because many migrants travel by boat without any documentation.
Another major concern is why their boat capsized – was it overloaded, was the sea too rough, or was it hit by a passing ship?
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The boat was described as “very flimsy” by French authorities.
In previous years, crossings have plummeted dramatically in the autumn. That has not occurred this year.
This is because the route has become extremely profitable for people smugglers, who charge migrants around £3,000 to board a boat.
Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that while the UK and France agreed that more needed to be done, there had been “difficulties” convincing the French to “do things in the way that we think the situation deserves.”
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron told Mr. Johnson that he “expects the British to cooperate fully [and] refrain from politicizing a tragic situation.”
Mr. Macron stated that 1,552 smugglers have been arrested in northern France since the beginning of the year, and 44 smuggler networks have been dismantled.
Despite this, he reported that 47,000 attempted Channel crossings to the UK occurred this year, with 7,800 migrants rescued.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the UK should work with the French in the makeshift camps, where people smugglers’ power was “far greater” than that of the authorities.
He told said that he was “tired of the home secretary playing to the headlines on this with grand statements about what she’s going to do… but not actually achieving anything.”
The UK has agreed to pay France €62.7 million (£54 million) to help secure the borders between 2021 and 2022.
It comes at a time when asylum applications in the UK have reached their highest level in nearly 20 years, with 37,562 applications filed in the year to September.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has called for a better system based on “compassion, justice, and cross-border cooperation.”
The Dover Strait is the world’s busiest shipping lane, and it has claimed many lives of people attempting to cross in inflatable dinghies.
The number of migrants crossing from France to the UK is at an all-time high, and at least ten people are believed to have died in the last few weeks while attempting to cross.
According to the International Organization for Migration, which is affiliated with the United Nations, Wednesday’s disaster was the worst single loss of life in the Channel since data collection began in 2014.
