10,000 crossings since the beginning of the year

This year, more than 10,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats towards Great Britain. This was reported by the British news agency PA, citing figures from the Home Office in London.

The year 2024 will be a dangerous crossing year. In the same period last year, the previous record year of 2022 saw more than 9,300 people cross the strait between France and the UK in the first five months.

For Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government, the rising numbers come at an inopportune time. Making the issue of irregular migration in the English Channel a campaign issue for the parliamentary elections scheduled for July 4, he promised to “stop the boats”. To prevent people from crossing over, the majority Conservative government recently passed a law in parliament that enables the deportation of irregular migrants to Rwanda regardless of their origin.

Human rights organization Amnesty International has criticized the asylum deal with Rwanda as not only illegal and immoral, but ineffective, according to recent migration statistics. Instead, he has called for legal entry into Great Britain for asylum seekers, as reported by the PA.