3 days ago
Afghan men jailed for piloting boatload of 70 migrants across the Channel - in crossing that killed woman and child on same day Dunkirk flotilla set sail
Two Afghan men who piloted a boat carrying 70 migrants across the Channel, during the same crossing in which a woman and child died, have been jailed.
Shah Salim Sajjadi, 38, and Safiollah Mohammadi, 25, were detained after the packed dinghy arrived onshore in Dover on May 21.
The vessel was among 13 carrying 825 people in total, which crossed the Channel as a flotilla of 'Little Ships' took part in a Dunkirk evacuation memorial on the 85th anniversary of the WW2 rescue.
During their 45-mile journey to remember the rescue from May 1940, Border Force and the French navy asked the boats to clear a one-mile area so the migrant dinghy could pass through.
On departure from a beach near Calais earlier in the day, a woman and child were picked up by a French coastal patrol vessel from the overcrowded boat after it got into difficulty but were declared dead.
At the time, French officials said most of the rest of the migrants aboard the inflatable refused rescue and carried on to UK.
French police are now probing the deaths under the direction of the Dunkirk prosecutor's office, the National Crime Agency has said.
After the boat's arrival in the UK, Sajjadi and Mohammadi were arrested and questioned by NCA investigators before being charged with facilitating illegal immigration to the UK.
A group of migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard an RNLI Lifeboat after a crossing on May 21
They later pleaded guilty at a hearing at Folkestone Magistrates' Court on 24 May and have now been jailed for eight months.
NCA Branch Commander Adam Berry said: 'This tragic incident demonstrates just how dangerous these crossings are, and the callous nature of those who organise them.
'The boat in question was dangerously overcrowded, but Sajjadi and Mohammadi chose to carry on their journey.
'We continue to work with French colleagues to investigate the circumstances of this crossing and the fatalities.'
Refugee charity Utopia 56 said it alerted emergency services to the tragedy, writing on X at the time: '"The boat is broken, two people are dead." This is the information we received during a distress call in the English Channel this morning.'
Chris Cox, who was coordinating the flotilla celebrating Operation Dynamo, described the moment one of the boats carrying migrants was spotted by a French vessel
He said: 'There was a migrant boat in the water that was being covered by a French naval vessel.
He added that after being notified, he steered clear 'and let the authorities look after it'.
He added: 'For the people in the small boat, they have never done this before, and they don't know what to expect.'
The recreation, however, was unhindered on its journey from Ramsgate to Dunkirk, save for the interruption from border officials and the French.
The Telegraph reported that sailors were told in a maritime frequency message: 'There is a (French) warship on our head with a migrant (boat) close by.
'And we've been requested to give one nautical mile distance from that vessel, over.'
A French-accented voice, believed to be from the French naval vessel Oyapock, then replied: 'Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.'
Since Labour came into power, 38,049 people have crossed the English Channel on 685 boats.
That averages around 114 migrants crossing per day, higher than the daily averages under Rishi Sunak, 81, and Boris Johnson, 57, but lower than during Liz Truss's brief tenure, when it reached 212.
So far this year, a total of 14,807 people have made the crossing.
It comes after nearly 1,200 migrants crossed the Channel to the UK in a single day, with one of Sir Keir Starmer's ministers saying over the weekend that control of Britain's borders had been lost.
The Prime Minister faced backlash over what was described as a 'day of shame' as a surge in dinghy crossings overwhelmed both French and UK border patrols.
The latest Home Office figures reveal that 1,194 migrants arrived in 18 boats, pushing the provisional total for the year so far to 14,811.
This is 42 per cent higher than the 10,448 recorded at the same time last year and a staggering 95 per cent increase on the 7,610 from 2023, according to analysis by PA news agency.
It is still lower than the highest daily total of 1,305 arrivals since data began in 2018, which was recorded on September 3, 2022.
But the total of arrivals for the year, 14,811, is the highest ever recorded for the first five months of a year since data was first recorded on Channel crossings in 2018.
It has also surpassed the highest total recorded for the first six months of the year, which was previously 13,489 on June 30 last year - and in 2024, the number of arrivals did not reach more than 14,000 until July 9, reaching 14,058.
At Gravelines in northern France, more than half a dozen French police officers simply stood by on Saturday morning and watched as migrants waded into the sea and scrambled onto an inflatable boat.
French authorities said they rescued 184 people.
On Sunday, Defence Secretary John Healey told Trevor Phillips on Sky News: 'Pretty shocking, those scenes yesterday.
'The truth is, Britain's lost control of its borders over the last five years.
'The last government last year left an asylum system in chaos and record levels of immigration.
'But I think that yesterday tells us a really big problem, which is that you've got French police unable to intervene and intercept the boats when they are in shallow water.
'We saw the smugglers launching elsewhere and coming round like a taxi to pick them up.'
Mr Healey insisted there was 'new co-operation' with the French, suggesting their officials would intervene in the water.
When asked whether he was 'hacked off' with France for not doing so now, Mr Healey said: 'They are not doing it, but we've got the agreement that they will change the way they work.
'Our concentration now is to push them to get that into operation so they can intercept these smugglers and stop these people in the boats, not just on the shore.'
Reacting to the huge crossing numbers, the Conservatives' former Home Secretary James Cleverly today said: 'The arrogance of Starmer, Cooper and the rest.
'They thought border control would be easy for the oh-so-clever progressive Labour government. They thought they could achieve more by doing less. Their hubris is now plain to see.
'I warned Yvette Cooper that scrapping the Rwanda agreement would send the wrong message to people smugglers. She ignored me.
'I said the Border Security Command duplicated the work of the Small Boats Operation Command and therefore wasn't adding value. She ignored me.
'Scrapping so many elements of the Illegal Migration Act and fast-tracking asylum acceptances would attract more illegal migration.
'She ignored me. And now we see the worst small boat arrival figures ever.'
