More than 2,000 Channel migrants took advantage of a weather window to cross in small boats over the past three days, GB News can reveal.
Latest official figures from the Ministry of Defence show that 400 people crossed the Channel on Monday in 8 small boats.
One boat managed to land on a beach at St Margaret’s Bay near Dover. Ten people on board the dinghy ran off. Authorities managed to detain three of them, but the remaining seven migrants are still unaccounted for.
More than 1,800 people arrived in UK waters at the weekend, taking advantage of a break in the weather after two weeks of poor conditions in the Channel.
Migrants clashed with French police near the coast at the weekend
GB News
Including yesterday’s arrivals, official figures now reveal that 2,225 people took advantage of the three-day weather window to make the illegal journey.
It comes as Home Secretary Suella Braverman signed a £63 million deal with her French counterpart, to boost cross-Channel cooperation and the number of French police patrolling the beaches of North Western France.
The Home Secretary cautioned against a belief that the Anglo-French deal would provide the “silver bullet” to the small boats crisis. She said that a joined up approach, including other options, like plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, was needed to help get to grips with the problem.
Overall figures show that 42,138 people have now crossed the Channel since the beginning of January this year.
In the whole of last year, 28,526 people crossed from France to the UK in small boats.
Border Force officials are escorting record numbers of migrants onto UK shores
PA
GB News Kent producer has confirmed no small boats arrived this morning, because of bad weather in the Channel.
Conditions are expected to remain poor until at least Friday.