A five-year-old girl is among 17 migrants to arrive in Dover on the 14th consecutive day of Channel crossings as smugglers offer ‘gold, silver and bronze’ packages to desperate passengers.
Yesterday 112 migrants arrived at Kent’s shores, bringing the total for this month so far up to at least 1,232 – smashing July’s record 1,118 arrivals.
The arrivals come as traffickers take advantage of vulnerable asylum seekers desperately fleeing their homelands by offering the paid-for arrangement at a camp in Calais.
The most expensive package, gold, costs £10,000 and means you get a larger boat with better conditions, less other people and lifejackets, as reported by The Sun.
One migrant who is hoping to make the journey in the next few days told the newspaper: ‘The prices vary. It depends on the size of the boat and how many people are inside.
‘People come around offering the crossings. We pay and keep in touch. They tell us when and where to go and pick us up.
‘I’m looking forward to it. Britain is like heaven to me!’
A five-year-old girl is one of 17 migrants to arrive at Dover after being picked up off the Kent coast by Border Force today
The bronze package costs £1,000 or less and refugees are often crammed onto a stolen boat
The silver package costs between £3,000 and £5,000, and leaves refugees on a slightly smaller boat, as seen by migrants crossing last Tuesday, who took selfies as they neared Dover
The most expensive package, gold, costs £10,000 and means you get a larger boat with better conditions, less other people and lifejackets
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent, by the Border Force
The silver package costs between £3,000 and £5,000, and means you get a worse boat. And the lowest package, bronze, means you pay a prize of £1,000 or less and are often crammed onto a stolen boat.
It comes as more than 1,000 migrants have arrived in the past 10 days, with more than 100, including a baby, picked up along the coast of Dover, Kent, yesterday.
Yesterday 112 people, including a baby, arrived on eight vessels, one of which washed up next to the town’s iconic white cliffs.
Dover’s MP Natalie Elphicke said she saw eight people on one boat, including a woman.
She tweeted on Sunday: ‘This morning at about 9am, eight illegal entrants motored into Britain. This is the dinghy they arrived in. This is the reality of the small boats crossings.
Migrants pictured being led off the boats in Dover, Kent. A Border Force officer at the front carries a young child
‘Only when migrants and traffickers alike know that they will be stopped and returned will these journeys come to an end.’
Migrant boats have been seen lying in the sea after Border Force officials picked up more refugees yesterday.
Dan O’Mahoney, Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, said other countries caps’ make it difficult to send refugees back, if they don’t have a legitimate asylum claim to stay in the UK.
He said: ‘It is a fact that these crossings are illegally facilitated by criminals who are making money exploiting migrants desperate to come to our country.
At least 17 migrants have arrived in Dover today after they were intercepted by Border Force officials off the Kent coast
Dover’s MP Natalie Elphicke stood next to a small craft eight migrants had used to cross from France on Sunday morning
Migrants were taken out of their own small boat and brought on board a Border Force patrol vessel
Border Force crews brought the small boat back to shore after migrants tried to use it to cross
Refugees are tested for coronavirus after arriving at Dover Harbour, today is the 14th consecutive day people have tried to make the dangerous crossing from France
‘It is also a fact that France is a manifestly safe country with a fully functioning asylum system and refugees there can and should claim asylum. I am working with my counterparts in France and have reaffirmed our joint commitment to stopping these crossings and making this route totally unviable.
‘We are determined to return those who do not have a legitimate asylum claim. However, this is made increasingly difficult as countries can have caps on the number of returns they accept. We are working as a matter of urgency to resolve this.’
The Home Office has refused to provide any of the countries or their respective limits on taking returning migrants whose asylum claims are refused in the UK.
Talks are ongoing to resolve the issue and its understood the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the ongoing issue.
On Saturday evening the Ministry of Defence announced that it was sending a specialist team to provide support for ‘the daily running of Border Force operations’ after another 90 people made the crossing on Friday.
The Royal Navy has not been employed to help stop such crossings since January 2019.
A baby was among 112 migrants to be intercepted while crossing the Channel to the UK yesterday
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel following a number of small boat incidents in the Channel earlier yesterday
The deployment comes after 10 consecutive days of landings, with refugees seen possing for selfies as they wait to be picked up in the English Channel.
A task-force of around a dozen officers will help to plan and organise operations while working alongside Border Force officials, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
‘Civilian authorities are not used to fast paced, large scale and constantly changing situations in the same way as the military. That’s what we do,’ an MoD source told the newspaper.
Migrant camps have been dismantled in Calais, forcing refugees to move to more remote areas before making the crossing.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has sparked a row with her French counterparts, however, after she said migrants are crossing the Channel to Britain because they believe France is a ‘racist country’ where they may be ‘tortured’.
Border Force patrols picked up 112 migrants travelling in eight small boats throughout Sunday
Refugees preparing to cross the Channel are staying at a makeshift camp after French authorities carried out evictions at larger sites earlier last week
A boat that took a group of Iranian migrants across the Channel on August 12
The Royal Navy is set to advise on dealing with migrant crossings as it is used to ‘fast paced, large scale and constantly changing situations,’ a Ministry of Defence source has said
The Home Secretary’s inflammatory remarks, in a private meeting with Tory MPs, infuriated French politicians. One blasted: ‘Madam Patel is not a politician who does much thinking.’
But the row came as Europe’s top judges condemned France for ‘degrading and inhumane’ treatment of asylum seekers in forcing them to sleep rough for months in ‘constant fear of being attacked or robbed’.
Tory MPs taking part in the Zoom conference call with Ms Patel also said she claimed to have been frustrated in her efforts to crack down on the Channel migrant crisis by No 10 – although both sides denied that last night.
The private web chat with the Home Secretary came amid mounting anger on the Tory backbenches over how the Government was handling the migrant crisis.
One MP claimed Ms Patel had told them: ‘France is a racist country. They would rather come to England.’
Government sources have strongly denied that, insisting that the Home Secretary had only been passing on what migrants had been saying about France.
One stressed: ‘Priti made clear these were migrants’ views – not hers’, adding that the Home Secretary thought claims of possible torture if they returned to France were nonsense, pushed by activist lawyers.