Displaying items by tag: migrant boats

A plan to use nets to stop dinghies carrying migrants across the English Channel is being considered by the Government. Dan O'Mahoney, who leads the Home Office's efforts to tackle illegal crossings outlined the strategy to the Sunday Telegraph. ‘We definitely are very, very close to being able to implement a safe return tactic where we make an intervention safely on a migrant vessel, take migrants on board our vessel and then take them back to France. The problem with that currently is that the French won't accept them back.’ He said this was just one of a number of methods his team has considered deploying over the next few months, but he did not go into further details.

1,775 migrants entered the UK in small boats this year: a record 741 landed in May. The French navy is escorting them across the Channel and into British waters as smugglers exploit legal maritime loopholes. By a 1974 law, all mariners must provide assistance to vessels in distress at sea. The small boats crossing the Channel are often overloaded and taking on water. When French vessels attempt to intercept them, migrants threaten to jump into the sea, or even throw children overboard. Their refusal to be rescued by French authorities puts lives at risk, so the French have no option but to shadow the boats into British waters, where migrants are safe, knowing they will be taken to Britain, not back to France. MPs are calling for new powers to return people to France.