230 cross the English Channel in the same boat

 

TT

 

Published 14.17

  

Asylum seekers and other migrants continue to seek entry to the UK. File photo from Dover. Photo: Matt Dunham/AP/TT

A simple small boat has crossed the English Channel with 230 migrants on board – the highest number of people ever recorded on a crossing with a vessel of this type.

The boat arrived in the early hours of Monday morning, reports the BBC.

A spokesman for the British Home Office said that the latest incident shows the “dangerous methods used by criminal gangs”, i.e. migrant smugglers who “continue to risk lives by squeezing more and more people into unseaworthy vessels”.

The 230 people in one and the same boat beat the previous record from July, when 165 people crossed the Channel in a single boat. At the same time, the spokesperson pointed out that overall fewer migrants have crossed the English Channel by boat this year than in previous years.