Total of 616 migrants crossed English Channel in small boats on Sunday
Migrant crossings hit new daily record for the year: 616 people made journey across English Channel in 12 small boats on Sunday – as 2023 total hits 8,380
- Ruthless traffickers exploited the weekend heatwave, low wind and calm seas
A total of 616 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats on Sunday – the highest daily number so far this year.
Traffickers used the weekend heatwave, low wind and calm seas to ferry people across the busy trade route in small boats crammed with around 51 people each.
The figure for yesterday exceeds the 497 people who arrived on Saturday, April 22, and brings the provisional total for this year to 8,380.
It is a blow for Rishi Sunak, who claimed last month that his curbs on the boats were ‘beginning to work’ after a north wind in May and early June brought crossings to a near halt.
However, yesterday’s arrivals suggest that bad weather was the criminal gangs’ key obstacle.
A boat of migrants coming into contact with a ship in the English Channel on Saturday
Small, crammed boats were escorted by the French Navy from near Calais, Dunkirk, and Boulogne for mid-channel pick-ups by Britain’s Border Force. Picture taken on Saturday
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Of the 45,755 people who crossed the Channel in small boats in 2022, 12,301 – or more than a quarter – came from Albania and most claimed asylum after arriving.
The Commons home affairs committee found little justification for the Home Office‘s acceptance of 51 per cent of Albanian asylum claims up to June 2022 – a far higher proportion than elsewhere in Europe.
A report by the committee said: ‘Albania is a safe country, it is not at war and is a candidate country to join the EU.
‘There is no clear basis for the UK to routinely accept thousands of asylum applications from Albanian citizens.’The surge in Channel crossings has reportedly led to a rise in crime in Britain, with 80 Albanian migrants sentenced for offences including murder, rape and kidnap in the first four months of 2023 alone.
The National Crime Agency has previously revealed that a ‘significant number’ of Albanian Channel migrants work for drug gangs once in the UK and send hundreds of millions of pounds to Albania every year.
The NCA also said Albanians were falsely claiming to be victims of trafficking to game the system and remain in the UK.
The committee found that in January 2023 there were more foreign nationals from Albania in English and Welsh jails than any other country.
Nine other countries, including Germany, had accepted no asylum claims from Albania.
The committee wants the Home Office to explain why the UK’s asylum acceptance rate is so generous, and insists ‘a key driver of migration from Albania is economic’.
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