More than 150 migrants were rescued in the early hours of Tuesday morning after a boat caught fire in the English Channel in an attempt to travel from France to Britain.
Rescue Efforts
The boat’s engine caught fire and its condition deteriorated rapidly, forcing French and British coastguards to rescue 157 people, France’s maritime prefecture of the Channel and North Sea said.
French authorities had already rescued five people from the boat overnight. They had sent several vessels to monitor the boat’s crossing when it set out from near Boulogne-sur-Mer on Monday, as these types of voyages are notoriously dangerous – a total of 162 people have died in migrant boats trying to cross the Channel between 2018 and 2025.
Small boat crossings have become a political flashpoint in the UK in recent years, driving harder-line immigration policies from both center-right Conservative and center-left Labour governments, and contributing to the rise of the populist hard-right party Reform UK.
Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged his government will be “relentless” in tackling the issue. He highlighted recent “increased enforcement activity” as well as the need to create a system which “offers safe routes for people as well, because that also takes away the selling point of the gangs.”
Original reporting: KTVZ (Central Oregon) — read the source article.
