Migrants fail to reach U.K. in boat from Belgium

Migrants attempt to reach U.K. in a small dinghy. (Flickr)

14 migrants seeking to reach the U.K. from Belgium in a small boat were forced to swim back to the shore of De Panne on January 21. Belgian authorities accounted for six of these migrants; however, eight remain missing, the BBC reports. Authorities believe that the migrants made it back to land.

Rather than taking the roughly 40 kilometer (25 mile) journey across the English Channel from France, the group of migrants attempted to travel 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the Belgian town of De Panne to the United Kingdom in a small dinghy. According to the migrants in Belgian custody, the remaining eight migrants lost at sea all made it back to land, though this is not confirmed yet. Attempts by migrants to cross the English Channel from France into the U.K. are common; at least 1,892 people crossed the Channel in 2019 according to research by the BBC. However, attempts from Belgian shores are much rarer.

Britain has an agreement with France involving patrols on French beaches to try to prevent small boat crossings, as stated by the New York Times. With these patrols recently doubled in an attempt to reduce crossings, smugglers may be taking a longer, more dangerous route from Belgium. “The stress is getting higher. Perhaps smugglers are trying to find different routes, other ways of getting into the UK,” said Bram Degrieck, the mayor of De Panne.

A majority of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats are from Iran, according to the National Crime Agency, and five out of the six migrants currently in Belgian custody are Iranian. The Home Office discourages these crossings and has stated that asylum seekers should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach; however, according to the Home Office, about half of asylum applications from Iranian migrants in the U.K. are granted. Migrants’ reasons for attempting to cross the Channel and claim asylum in the U.K. instead of mainland Europe are not unique and are different for each individual, according to experts.

Conservatives such as Natalie Elphicke, the member of Parliament representing Dover and Deal, argue that all migrants arriving by small boat should be sent back to France. Shadow Home Secretary Dianne Abbott has a different view, saying that “people making these dangerous journeys in small boats are likely to be genuine refugees.”

The number of small boat attempts to reach the UK from France has been high recently with French authorities reporting almost daily rescues of migrant boats crossing the Channel. If a large number of these migrants were to attempt to cross from Belgium instead, they would be traveling almost double the distance, increasing the likelihood of failure and death.

“If migrants start to go further afield using longer routes the risk of fatalities obviously rises,” Steve Reynolds of the National Crime Agency said in December 2019.