A total of 254 candidates for exile to England, routed in the Channel for the past four days, have been rescued, said the maritime prefecture of the Channel, a sign that departures are increasing.
In the first seven months of the year, 533 attempts to cross by boat to England, involving 18,763 migrants, were recorded, up more than 50% compared to the same period in 2021, an already record year, where 12,100 people had been counted, according to the same source.
On August 14, a French Navy patrol boat rescued 63 shipwrecked people. The following night, a French customs coast guard patrol boat rescued 40 people.
On the evening of August 16, a canoe from the Dunkirk National Sea Rescue Society was mobilized to bring 50 passengers ashore from a routed clandestine boat.
And on the night of the 16th to 17th, a patrol boat from the French Navy rescued 62 people, while a rescue tug recovered 39 others.
According to British figures released on Sunday, the number of migrants crossing the Channel illegally into England since the start of the year has exceeded even 20,000, heading for a new record despite successive plans by the British government to try to end it.
The perilous clandestine crossings of the English Channel, one of the busiest sea routes in the world, have become a regular source of tension between Paris and London, especially since Brexit.
London has concluded a very controversial agreement with Rwanda to send asylum seekers who arrived illegally on British soil to this East African country.
Although none of these expulsions has yet taken place – a first flight scheduled for June was canceled after a decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – the candidates for the succession of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have both promised to continue this policy.