More than 900 people crossed the English Channel in small boats on Saturday, the highest number for a day this year.
973 migrants arrived on 17 boats, bringing the total for the year to 26,612 people on 503 boats, the Home Office said.
The crossing came on the same day that French authorities said four people, including a two-year-old boy, died while trying to cross the Channel to reach Britain.
The UK Home Office has previously said it was making progress in tackling dangerous crossings by small boats “which endanger lives and undermine border security.”
The previous highest number of arrivals in 2024 was 882 on June 18. While no border crossings were recorded in the first three days of October, 395 migrants arrived in the UK on Friday having made such a journey.
The total number of arrivals so far in 2024 is higher than last year, when 25,330 migrants arrived in the UK.
French authorities said on Saturday that the four people who died trying to cross the Channel were likely “trampled to death” by two separate boats whose engines failed. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the deaths were a “terrible tragedy,” adding that smugglers had “the blood of these people on their hands.”
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the loss of life was “appalling” and that “criminal smuggling gangs continue to organise these dangerous boat crossings.”
English Channel Migration Crisis
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had earlier said he was “absolutely determined” to crack down on smuggling gangs facilitating the crossings, but would not give a timescale for when this would be done.
The number of illegals making their way to England’s shores across the English Channel has steadily increased over the past few years. In 2018, 299 such cases were registered, in 2020, 8.4 thousand people already used the illegal sea route, and in 2021 their number reached 28.5 thousand. Later in 2022, this figure increased by 60% and reached 45.7 thousand. In total, over the last five years, more than 110 thousand illegals have crossed the Channel to the UK.
