Britain’s border control woes continued, with four more people killed on Friday morning after being forced onto an unseaworthy boat by murderous human traffickers.
French navy patrol boats and coast guard helicopters rescued around 60 migrants from a capsized rubber boat off the French coast of Boulogne-sur-Mer, south of Calais, on Friday night and morning. The boat was wrecked in the English Channel shortly after leaving the French coast, and four migrants were found unresponsive after being pulled from the water and could not be resuscitated.
Local Newspaper The Voyage of the Nord Note With rescue efforts not yet officially ended and the death toll yet to be determined, rescuers may be aware that there could still be more victims in the water.
The ongoing migrant crisis on England’s south coast, and the failure to do anything meaningful about it, has served as a death sentence for the previous British government that was voted out of power last week. The New Labour government, widely seen as a party instinctively in favor of open borders, has vowed to crack down but has yet to appear to take any action.
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, who has arguably done more than anyone to bring the border crisis to the public’s attention and hold the previous government to account, warned on Friday morning that he would do the same to the new Labour government. Reacting to the deaths, Mr Farage wrote:[four] With multiple deaths in the Channel this morning, the new government had better act fast.”
Borders will remain open forever: Labour vows to keep boat migrant routes open https://t.co/PqsPWWYEaT
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 4, 2024
The murder, perpetrated by ruthless smugglers ferrying thousands of euros per person on wholly unsuitable and horribly overcrowded boats, brings the number of people killed in attempted Channel crossings this year to 19. Meanwhile, some 14,000 people have made the crossing safely, an increase of nearly 20 percent on last year’s arrival rate. Reports Figaro.
As an example of how crowded the rubber boats that set out from the coast of northern France to reach the British coast were, the final fatal crossing was by crushing rather than drowning. The father of a seven-year-old girl who was on board described how a group of male migrants climbed onto the boat and forced themselves on board, without any regard for who they might hurt. A report from the time described the scene as follows:
He pleaded with those around him, including a young Sudanese man who joined the boat at the last moment, to let him get out so he could grab his youngest child. “I just wanted him to get out so I could pull my baby out,” Al-Hashimi said. He even punched the man, but was ignored.
“It was like death,” Al-Hashimi said. “We saw people dying. We saw the way the men were behaving. They didn’t care who they were trampling on: a child, someone’s head, young or old. People started suffocating. I couldn’t protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only option.”
Despite this desperate situation, the UK remains steadfast in creating a legal and border security environment that allows migrant smugglers to continue to operate and thrive.
