Number of Vietnamese migrants crossing Channel on small boats soars 177% in a year

The number of Vietnamese migrants arriving to the UK on small boats has jumped by 177 per cent year-on-year, according to new data on Channel crossings.

Home Office figures published on Thursday showed that from January to September this year the two most common nationalities making perilous journeys across the Channel were Afghans and Vietnamese.

Compared to the same nine-month period last year, the number of Afghan arrivals has decreased by 14 per cent, but the number of Vietnamese is up by a staggering 177 per cent.

Some 3,132 Vietnamese small boat migrants made the journey from January to September this year - up from 1,306 in the whole of 2023.

This is compared to just three Vietnamese nationals in 2019, and just four in 2018.

The surge has been linked to a new visa agreement the southeast Asian country signed with Hungary that allows easier access into the EU’s Schengen zone.

Home Office sources told The Times that the route was being used as a backdoor into Europe, with Vietnamese nationals travellng from Hungary to northern France. They pointed to a high number of Vietnamese women arriving illegally in the UK, with Border Force officials saying they were worried about women being trafficked to the UK to work in the sex industry.

Human trafficking experts believe that the spike in Vietnamese migrants resorting to small boat crossings may also be might also be because it’s become harder to hide in the back of lorries.

Vietnamese people smugglers are also offering an “elite” small boat experience that is faster and more streamlined, a BBC investigation found. One smuggler told an undercover reporter that the small boat crossing would cost £2,600.

He said that many migrants were flying from Vietnam to Hungary, before moving on to Paris and then Dunkirk. The Vietnamese smugglers were facilitating access and timings but the logistics of the Channel crossings were co-ordinated by Iraqi Kurdish gangs.

Vietnamese smugglers were also bringing their clients to northern France only when the weather looked good and a crossing was imminent, reducing the time waiting around at the make-shift camps, the investigation found.

Home Office data showed that the total number of small boat arrivals for the year ending September 2024 was 29,851 - this was down 21 per cent compared to the previous year. However, when comparing the numbers annually, 2024 has already surpassed 2023 for small boat crossings.

Responding to the figures on Thursday, a Downing Street spokesperson said the government could not solve the small boats crisis overnight but was taking action.

The prime minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “The government inherited the worst start to a year on record for small boats arrivals, higher even than the record year in 2022 and the scale of that challenge means we can’t solve this overnight, but we are working at pace to dismantle the business model that drives this dangerous trade.”