Lack of "sufficient resources" to save lives of migrants crossing the Channel

On Saturday night, 18 Albanian asylum seekers, including two children, and two British people were rescued by an RNLI boat when their own boat began to sink off the coast of Kent. They were taken to Dover and are currently being interviewed by Border Force officers. Refugees have also been killed attempting to cross the English Channel either through the tunnel or by boarding ferries, rowing or even swimming.

Federico Soda, director of the IOM’s Coordination Office for the Mediterranean, said that the recent high number of arrivals was partly due to improving weather and also to the use of larger wooden vessels that carry up to 700 migrants. He also expressed concern over the unsafe wooden boats. He said, “This also explains the increase in the number of migrants dead or missing: one accident can result in hundreds of fatalities. This is a humanitarian emergency in the desert and at sea where thousands of people are dying.” John Vine said that he had raised the issue of migrants crossing the Channel with the Home Office when he was chief inspector of borders and immigration but this failed to result in “sufficient resources” being devoted to it. He added, “We must come together to change irregular, dangerous and costly migration to migration that is legal, safe and orderly.”

David Cameron has announced that Britain is to send a warship to the Mediterranean to combat people smuggling as EU operations continue. Border security expert and former Army officer Henry Bolton, who lost his bid to be Kent Police and Crime Commissioner candidate earlier this month, told BBC Radio 4 that “the UK has no comprehensive cross-government national border strategy. It is a fundamental flaw.”

A number of such people crossing the borders go unnamed, unreported, without protests or vigil, and without families or friends to raise concerns for them. The former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has said that unless more boats are deployed to patrol for migrants to the UK, lives would continue to be lost in the Channel.