UK boat ban policy increases risk of fatal crushing on dinghies, NGOs claim | Immigration & Asylum

Rights groups say Britain's policy of stopping boats has led to a surge in the number of migrants on French beaches, putting them at greater risk of crushing and suffocation.

In less than a year, at least eight people have died from drowning in dinghies in the English Channel, including a seven-year-old girl.

According to NGO monitoring, seven people were killed in four incidents over 16 days last month, the highest death toll since small boat crossings began.

They said increased policing on French beaches to stop smugglers could lead to more deaths unless the British government introduced safe passage policies.

The most recent death, on July 28, involved a Syrian woman who was believed to have suffocated while on a dinghy. Organisations such as Utopia 56, which supports migrants and the homeless in France, and Alarm Phone, which monitors the English Channel and Mediterranean and relays rescue calls to coastguards, have blamed the UK’s crackdown on small boats for the rising number of fatal accidents and suffocation deaths.

An Alarmphone spokesperson said: “We believe at least 62 people have died on the UK border since March 2023, when the UK and France signed the latest agreement to stop boats. Of those, 39 were killed in accidents involving sea crossings, and eight were crushed in dinghies. Is this figure within the acceptable limits of the UK and French governments?

Britain is funding France’s more aggressive policing of its beaches, with £478 million set to be spent in March 2023 on 500 extra police officers, new detention centres and other measures to stop people using dinghies to cross the Channel.

The number of dinghies available has also decreased since the UK and other countries attempted to disrupt the supply chain, as did Germany and Turkey. French police sometimes cut boats with knives, rendering them useless.

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This led to the dinghy being launched in a huge hurry before it was properly inflated, and carrying more people, increasing the risk of damage.

In one incident on April 23, five people, including Iraqi national Sarah Al-Hashimi, were crushed to death while there were reportedly 112 people on board.

In an incident that took place on September 26 last year, a 24-year-old Eritrean woman was reportedly crushed to death and suffocated when the boat set off from Sangate Beach near Calais.

There are likely more unrecorded cases due to the chaotic and crowded conditions on dinghies, with many passengers not knowing each other and speaking different languages.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to put an end to dangerous small boat crossings that undermine border security and put lives at risk.

The new government is taking steps to strengthen border security and will establish a new Border Security Command, which will have new counter-terrorism powers and will have hundreds of personnel based in the UK and overseas, bringing together intelligence and enforcement agencies to tackle criminal smuggling networks that make millions of dollars.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/05/uk-stop-the-boats-policy-raising-risk-of-deadly-crushes-on-dinghies-ngos-say The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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