Total of 973 migrants cross Channel in busiest day of year so far

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Louise Thomas

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A total of 973 migrants in 17 small boats crossed the English Channel to the UK on Saturday – the same day four people died – making it the busiest day of the year so far.

The arrivals brings the total for the year to 26,612 compared to 25,330 by the same date last year and 33,611 in 2022, with 1,368 having made the journey on Friday and Saturday combined, according to Home Office figures.

The crossings happened on the same day a two-year-old boy, a woman and two men died in two incidents off the coast of France.

A total of 15 people were recovered from onboard to a tow vessel called l’Abeille, including the boy who was unconscious and who – despite a medical team being scrambled by helicopter – was declared dead.

The French interior minister Bruno Retailleau posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the boy had been “trampled to death”.

In the second incident, a boat with 83 people on board which had sailed from the Calais area, suffered several engine failures which caused panic on board leading to some of the occupants falling into the sea, all of whom were rescued.

The French authorities said that when 71 migrants were transferred from the inflatable boat to the Flamant – a French navy patrol boat – three people were found unconscious at the bottom of the vessel and two men and a woman, all aged around 30, were pronounced dead.

The prefect of Pas-de-Calais region Jacques Billant said that since Thursday evening, 31 attempted crossings had been prevented by the French police and nearly 250 migrants rescued at sea.

The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has pledged an immediate £75 million investment in border security, with funding made available to the National Crime Agency to pay for covert operation equipment to disrupt people smugglers.

The Home Office said this would support the delivery of criminal investigations and disruption operations in the UK, across Europe and in upstream countries.

This week, the UK and other G7 nations agreed an anti-smuggling action plan designed to boost co-operation on the issue following talks in Italy.

The Home Office said this included joint investigations and intelligence-sharing in a bid to target criminal smuggling routes.

The action plan also detailed “working collaboratively” with social media companies to monitor the internet and different platforms to prevent them being used to enable migrant smuggling and people trafficking.

This included calling on social media companies “to do more to respond to online content that advertises migrant smuggling services”.