Latest news with #Dunkirk
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
French plans to stop small boats will lead to more deaths, says charity
Plans by French police to enter the sea to stop small boats carrying UK-bound asylum seekers willcause more deaths and will be challenged in the European courts, a French charity has said. Arthur Dos Santos, the coordinator of the refugee charity Utopia 56, said there would be an increase in the number of people who would take 'desperate' measures to reach the UK. The official, based in Calais, said the charity was examining the possibility of a legal challenge in the European courts to stop the tactics. Government sources have told the Guardian that French police would be authorised to tackle boats within 300 metres of the shore and in nearby waterways. The strategy aims to be ready in time for the Franco-British summit, which begins on 8 July. This coincides with the state visit to London of Emmanuel Macron, the French president. Over the past few days, French police have waded into the sea to stop asylum seekers from boarding boats, increasing speculation that police are already using the tactic. In one incident this week at Gravelines beach near Dunkirk, officers were shown waist deep in water, using CS gas, riot shields and batons, as they attempted to force a boat to return to the beach. Dos Santos said the French plan to harden its tactics against asylum-seekers and smugglers would result in more deaths. 'When police enter the sea, it will cause more deaths, more people will drown as they try to get away before being caught and forced back to the beach. There will be more violence, as some people fight back, and the people attempting to reach England will find other ways to try to get to the UK. This will not stop them, but it will make the crossings much more dangerous,' he said. The scheme is intended to give the French authorities the power to halt dinghies that 'taxi' up to beaches from nearby waterways. Until now, guidelines prevent French police from intervening offshore unless it is to rescue passengers in distress. In practice, the policy means officers can stop boats leaving the beach by puncturing them, but are restricted once they are in the water. Dos Santos said the tactic would face legal challenges in the European courts, with lawyers examining human rights laws and the UN convention on the law of the sea. 'This policy will be taken to the European courts. We will look very closely at this, as will other organisations,' he said. A British charity that operates in France told the Guardian two weeks ago it planed to explore possible legal challenges to stop the tactic. Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, said: 'When the last Tory government tried to do pushbacks in the Channel, Care4Calais initiated a legal challenge and won. Any attempt to introduce interceptions in French waters must face the same level of resistance.'
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
French police ‘will never stop us', say Channel migrants
Channel migrants have vowed that they will 'never give up' on trying to reach Britain despite a looming French crackdown on illegal crossings. French ministers are set to change maritime rules to allow border police, gendarmes and coastguard vessels to stop boats from leaving waters within 300 metres of their coastline. The new strategy will see 'taxi boats' packed with migrants intercepted in shallow waters off Channel beaches. It will probably mean that migrants trying to clamber aboard are pushed back onto dry land by officers armed with shields and batons. However, migrants told The Telegraph that they would 'never give up' trying to reach the UK on small boats. Young men, teenagers and families with small children said they would try to find a way through to Britain, whatever new methods were adopted by the French. Waiting at a makeshift migrant camp on the edge of Loon-Plage, near the port of Dunkirk, was Jamal, a 24-year-old Sudanese man. He had made the two-month journey from North Africa to northern France by any method he could, including boat and horseback. 'If the police stop us in the water when we try to reach the boats, then we will go back to the beach the next day or the next week,' he said. 'We'll never give up.' Ali, a 27-year-old nursing assistant from Afghanistan, had a similar message for the French and British governments. 'Me and my friends are seeking asylum. As Azeris, we cannot express our ethnic identity in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. It is terrible,' he said. 'That is why I hope the British will give us asylum. That's why we travelled here from Afghanistan. 'I agree people shouldn't be able to cross illegally – only refugees who really need asylum should be protected.' Ali and Jamal, along with their fellow migrants at the Grand-Synthe camp, have faced a heavier than normal police presence on the beach at nearby Gravelines. The beach, which is more than 1,000 yards long, has been a favourite pick-up point for people-smugglers operating 'taxi boats' over the past week. But early morning, patrols of the sands and surrounding dunes by French riot police ensured that no migrant boats left Gravelines on Friday. From before dawn, foot patrols with powerful torches swept the dunes for migrants who might be hidden. As the sun rose, officers patrolled the surrounding paths and roads leading to the beach through holiday homes and children's playgrounds. Detritus left behind by migrants who had recently managed to board boats could be seen piled high on the edge of the beach – trainers, bags, clothes and some identity documents. There was even a crutch left behind by one migrant who was seen earlier in the week using his remaining crutch to clamber into a boat with the help of fellow passengers. There are signs at Gravelines and elsewhere that French police are taking a more interventionist approach in the migrant crisis, in response to criticism by the British Government. In the past week, migrants emerging from the dunes have been sprayed with tear gas. All vehicles approaching Gravelines beach were searched by early morning police patrols on Thursday, with officers checking for any signs of hidden migrants or inflatable boats. Police are also using drones and light aircraft to spot boats along a 75-mile stretch of coastline. At one stage, a patrol van could be seen parked next to a memorial honouring the sacrifice of French and British marines who took part in repeated attempts to reconnoitre German coastal defences in the run up to D-Day – an echo of previous Anglo-French co-operation. But migrant aid charities have warned that the French and British governments will have 'blood on their hands' if police adopt new tactics of intercepting migrants in the waters off the coast. In the past seven days, 2,066 people have crossed the Channel using 33 small boats, with traffickers taking advantage of good weather to make the crossing. Last Friday alone, 919 made the crossing using 14 boats. That was followed by 489 on Tuesday and 244 on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, six French coastguard vessels took part in the rescue of a small group of migrants whose overladen dinghy had run into difficulties mid-way across the Channel. The dinghy had set off unnoticed from a beach close to the port of Calais. The people on board were handed over to the British authorities after being plucked from their boat. A Home Office spokesman said: 'We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security. 'The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay, and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.'
The Sun
a day ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Speaking French, Swedish, German… the migrants booted out of EU in asylum crackdown & on small boats to ‘soft touch' UK
MORE than 2,000 migrants are massing in the Jungle camp outside Dunkirk in northern France. And their aim — to cross the Channel and take advantage of 'soft touch' Britain after they were turfed out by the EU countries where they previously lived. 4 Shocking new figures have revealed that while the number of asylum claims across Europe is falling, the figure for the UK is going up. And as small boat crossings to Britain are increasing daily, the level of 'irregular' crossings into the EU countries from Africa, the Balkans and Eastern Europe have significantly reduced. When The Sun visited the overcrowded Dunkirk camp, we were shocked to find that although it was packed full of Eritreans, Afghans and Somalis, we heard fluent conversations in German, Swedish, Belgian and Danish. And that is because a huge majority of the migrants waiting to come here have lived in those European countries for years. Somali mum-of-two Huda Abdi, 34, was among a large number of people we interviewed who said they were heading to the UK to try their luck again, after their asylum claims were rejected in other European countries. These are people who have already paid out thousands to people- smugglers to reach the Continent and had no wish to leave. Huda plans to apply for asylum in the UK after her original claim in the Netherlands was turned down when she was living in the northern city of Groningen. She told The Sun: 'I don't want to cross the Channel, but what choice do I have? "I spent seven years living in Holland and I was happy and settled there. 'Then one day in 2023 they told me to leave. "They said my asylum claim had been rejected and I would be deported. 'They kicked me out of the refugee camp and I became homeless the same day. 'I was very upset and I still don't know why my asylum claim was turned down. "The people doing the interview did not believe what I said. 'But I know many, many people who had their claims rejected in Holland. "I don't think the Dutch government understands the situation in Somalia. 'I've tried to claim asylum in France, too, but they told me to go back to Holland. 'Now I'm sleeping in the Jungle and as soon as I can, I will make the crossing to the UK to claim asylum again. 'HUMANITY IN BRITAIN' 'There is more humanity in Britain and I want my children, who are ten and eight, to join me over there.' The decision by EU countries to get tough on immigration — in response to rising public concern — is reflected in the latest figures. In the first quarter of this year, there was a 17.6 per cent fall in asylum claims across the EU, according to the European Commission's statistics service Eurostat. At the same time, there was a 17 per cent rise in asylum claims in the UK, from 93,150 to 109,343, according to the Home Office. EU countries clamping down include the Netherlands, where the Party for Freedom, founded and led by firebrand Geert Wilders, rose to power before quitting the governing coalition this month. Elsewhere, the Alternative for Germany has become a major force, while in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was elected on an anti-immigration ticket. Even centrist French President Emmanuel Macron has been forced to act tough on migration to see off the threat of Marine Le Pen' s far-right National Rally party. European leaders have yanked away the welcome mat at the same time as they are ploughing millions into border security — with significant results. Irregular crossings to the Canary Islands from Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and The Gambia in West Africa were down 34 per cent in the first quarter of this year, according to the EU's border security agency Frontex. 4 Crossings into what is termed the Western Mediterranean — Africa into mainland Spain — were down ten per cent over the same period. The Central Mediterranean crossing point, where migrants take small boats from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Algeria to Italy and Malta — has witnessed a three per cent fall compared to last year. Meanwhile, there has been a 30 per cent reduction in crossings along the Eastern Mediterranean migrant route into Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria, where barbed wire fences have been erected along the border with Turkey. The Western Balkan passage through Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia has seen a 58 per cent reduction. And crossings from the Eastern land border, from Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and the Russian Federation, have dropped 37 per cent despite Vladimir Putin pushing migrants in that direction to stoke political unrest. The only border bucking the trend is what Frontex terms 'exits towards the UK', with Channel crossings up five per cent compared to the first three months of last year. Around 50,000 small boat asylum seekers are expected to reach our shores by the end of 2025 — each paying smugglers around £2,000 — which puts the UK on course to have more arrivals than Italy, where only 23,004 people landed in the past six months, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This is a huge reduction on the 157,651 who reached Italy in 2023, before the Italians paid £85million to Tunisia to boost border security. That figure seems like a bargain compared to the £476million that was given to French border police over three years by the UK Home Office. Aid worker Rob Lawrie has seen at first hand how the migrant wave has turned towards the UK, having spent ten years helping out at camps in northern France. 'CRIMINAL NETWORKS' Rob, from Leeds, who hosts the To Catch A Scorpion podcast, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Dunkirk camp is now 'very full', with a 'few thousand' living there. He previously told the same programme: 'The problem is that asylum cases are dropping off massively in Europe in terms of being accepted. 'What we see in the camps of France is different nationalities from African nations — from Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations — they speak either German or Swedish or Belgian and Danish. 'And that's because they've been in those countries for two or three years and eventually had their second or third appeal denied. 'They're not going to go back to Eritrea, or whatever their country was, because of why they left. 'So their only option is now to go down to northern France and once again put their lives into the hands of these organised criminal networks.' Teenager Adau Abraham, from South Sudan, was among a stream of people travelling back and forth from Dunkirk's Jungle camp to the nearby Auchan supermarket when The Sun visited. Adau, 18, said: 'It is clear they don't want me here in France. "I tried to claim asylum at the application centre, but they told me I was too late and I would have to come back the next day and try again. 'Then, when I was walking back to the Jungle, the police stopped me and arrested me. "They said that as I didn't have any papers, I was illegal in France. "They put me in jail for three hours, which was terrifying. 'They told me they didn't want to see me again, that I had one week to leave France, or else.' Student Ali Yousef, 25, intends to move to Britain after he was kicked out of Germany. He said: 'I was living in Munich for a year or so and everything was good until they told me to leave. 'I had friends there and German people seemed nice, but the authorities do not care about our needs. 'They rejected my claim, even though I have tribal issues in Somalia. "I was deported last year and now I will go to the UK and try again.' Sadia Hassan, 20, from Adale, Somalia, had her asylum claims rejected by two EU countries. Standing with a female friend outside the Auchan store, she said: 'I lived in Holland for two years and they wasted my time. "Then I went to Germany and lived there for three months, but they said no, too. 'I can't afford to waste any more time in Europe so I am going to England to try again. 'If they reject me, I don't know what I will do"
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Telegraph
Two dead in migrant camp shootings
Two people died and at least seven were wounded in two separate shoot-outs over the weekend at a migrant camp in northern France. Both shootings took place near the Loon-Plage camp outside Dunkirk, where more than 1,500 people reside, as charities warned that rising migrant numbers and greater police pressure had led to increased tensions. Gunfire first erupted on Saturday, after authorities rescued almost 100 people trying to cross the Channel to the UK in previous two days. A 24-year-old Sudanese man was killed and five people were wounded, two seriously, including a woman and child, according to Charlotte Huet, the Dunkirk prosecutor. Police sources said that all the victims, including those killed, were Sudanese nationals and that the injured child was a baby. Authorities later arrested two suspects: a 29-year-old who claimed to be from Iraq and a 16-year-old who said he was from Afghanistan. An investigation has been opened into murder and attempted murder by an organised gang, the public prosecutor's office added. 'Access to healthcare and food is becoming difficult' A fresh shoot-out erupted on Sunday evening, with the public prosecutor's office on Monday confirming that one man had died and another was in critical condition. The first victim died after being shot in the head, and the wounded man was shot in the temple, according to a police source who added that a third person was wounded in the legs and had fled. Four 9mm cartridge cases were found at the scene, the source said. The public prosecutor said she had opened an investigation into murder, attempted murder and possession of weapons. 'At this time, no evidence has been found to link these events to those that occurred on Saturday, 14 June,' Ms Huet said. Salomé, a member of migrant help group Utopia56 who declined to give her surname, said: 'Tensions have been escalating for several weeks.' 'There are more than 1,000 people in the camps and access to healthcare and food is becoming extremely difficult,' she told AFP. She also pointed to the 'weekly dismantling' of camps in the area. France and Britain have vowed to crack down on people smugglers who charge steep fees for migrants to board often overloaded and unseaworthy boats. Some 14,812 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year in more than 260 boats, up nearly 32 per cent on the same period last year. It represents a record high for the first six months of any year since 2018. French maritime authorities said that on Thursday and Friday alone, they rescued 99 people from dinghies – that were drift or taking in water – that were carrying too many people. On Friday, UK authorities said that 919 people landed on its shores after crossing the Channel in 14 small boats. Some 52 people, all travelling on the same boat, had disembarked on the English coast the day before, they said. Since the start of the year, at least 15 migrants have died at sea while trying to reach England, French authorities said. The shoot-outs came after the French interior ministry confirmed earlier this month it would aim to intercept boats within 300 metres of the beaches to stop them leaving for the UK loaded with migrants. Until now, the French have refused to intervene in the water because they claim maritime laws prevent them from taking action that could put lives at sea at risk. But UK Government sources said ministers overseeing migration policy had given the green light to do so while 'respecting' the 'law of the sea'. The interventionist strategy is to be outlined in detail at the Franco-British summit, which begins on July 8, when Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will travel to London for a state visit.
India.com
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- India.com
Tom Hardy Expresses Desire To Visit India, Delights Fans With Desi Connection
New York: International star Tom Hardy enjoys a huge fan following across the globe, courtesy of his notable performances in 'Inception, 'Dunkirk, ' 'The Revenant, ' 'The Dark Knight Rises, ' and 'Venom'. His acting prowess has left many Indian fans spellbound over the years as well. And it seems like the desi audience is in for a surprise as Tom Hardy, in a recent interview with ANI, expressed his desire to visit India. "I'd love to go and visit India. It's not something I've done yet it so it's something I really, really want to do in my life," the Oscar-nominated actor shared. Meanwhile, Tom Hardy is being lauded for his role in the gangster drama 'MobLand', which also stars veteran actor Pierce Brosnan. On sharing space with the legendary actor, Tom Hardy said, "I've wanted to work with Pierce Brosnan for a long time, and I went to the same drama school as him, so it was a privilege to work with him because he's a fantastic actor. He's got such range, he's really professional, and he's got lots of versatility, and he's a super smart and wicked actor. I had a great time with him." 'MobLand' also marks Tom Hardy's reunion with ace filmmaker Guy Ritchie after 2008's RocknRolla. "I love Guy Ritchie. I've wanted to work with him for ages since I did RocknRolla. So it was brilliant to be able to get back to work with him and have a bit more meat on the bone," he added. MobLand, which also features veteran actress Helen Mirren, follows the London-based Irish crime family headed by Brosnan's Conrad as they fight for power within a global syndicate. Mirren plays Conrad's wife, Maeve ("the brains behind the charm," per Brosnan's voiceover in the trailer), and Hardy is Harry Da Souza, the family's fixer, as per The Hollywood Reporter. The show is out on Paramount+ and JioHotstar.
