UK Channel migrant arrivals top 25,000 in 2024

LONDON: The number of migrants arriving in Britain by crossing the Channel in small boats has topped 25,000 since the start of the year, provisional figures showed on Monday.

The figures come as the new Labour government -- like the last Conservative administration -- struggles to reduce the cross-Channel arrivals. Some 717 migrants crossed the Channel from northern France on Sunday, taking the cumulative number of arrivals so far in 2024 to 25,052, according to the interior ministry.

A similar number, 707, also made the crossing on Saturday. The total represents a four percent rise on the equivalent figure at this point last year, but a 21 percent drop on 2022. Stopping the small boat arrivals on England´s southern coast was a key issue in Britain´s general election in July.

Within days of taking power, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the Conservatives´ controversial scheme to deport migrants to Rwanda. Instead Starmer pledged to “smash the gangs” of people smugglers who organise the perilous crossings and are paid thousands of euros by each migrant.

Some 46 migrants have lost their lives attempting to reach British shores in overloaded rubber dinghies so far this year. Interior minister Yvette Cooper announced last month that the government aims over the next six months to achieve the highest rate of deportations of failed asylum seekers in five years.