Channel crossings continue after eight migrants die trying to reach UK

More than 1,000 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel over the weekend as eight people died trying to make the journey.

Channel crossings continued the day after news of the deaths emerged, with the Home Office recording 1,093 arrivals in two days as the tragedy unfolded.

This takes the provisional total for the year so far to 23,533, with nearly 10,000 Channel crossings recorded (9,959) since Labour won the general election, according to PA news agency analysis of government data.

Saturday’s arrivals – which came after a five-day hiatus in Channel activity – saw the second highest daily total in 2024 so far after 882 people made the journey on June 18.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said during a visit to Rome that he is “very interested” in Italy’s efforts to curb levels of irregular immigration.

The “dramatic reductions” in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Italy is something the Government wants to understand, he added, amid Labour’s efforts to crack down on criminal gangs involved in people smuggling.

He was joined on the trip by newly appointed border security commander Martin Hewitt, the former National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) chairman who oversaw the UK’s enforcement of lockdown laws during the coronavirus pandemic.

The French coastguard said 53 migrants were on board a boat which crashed into rocks overnight on Saturday into Sunday off the coast of Ambleteuse in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France.

Most of the group were rescued, with six people including a 10-month-old baby who had hypothermia taken to hospital, but eight men died.

More than 200 people were rescued from the Channel in a 24-hour period between Friday to Saturday, according to the French coastguard.

It comes less than two weeks after another boat was ripped apart as it made its way across the Channel, claiming the lives of 12 people including a pregnant woman and six children.

Campaigners said the deaths in the Channel were an “avoidable tragedy” and called on the Government to stop doing deals to “offload” its asylum responsibilities.

Amnesty International UK instead repeated calls for more ways in which asylum seekers can make safe and legal passage to the UK, adding: “The Government should be trying to restore the UK’s battered reputation on refugee issues by repairing an asylum system that’s been deliberately sabotaged by successive home secretaries stretching back years.”