Migrant Channel crossings top 18,000 for year so far amid two more deaths

More than 700 migrants crossed the Channel on the day two people died attempting the journey – the highest number of daily crossings since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.

The Home Office recorded 703 people arriving in the UK on Sunday in 11 boats, suggesting an average of 64 people per boat.

It comes as two people died in French waters while trying to cross the Channel, with others on board the boat understood to have been rescued and taken back to France.

French authorities are said to be leading the investigation into the deaths.

The latest crossings taking the provisional total for the year so far to 18,342 and mark the single highest day of arrivals so far under Sir Keir’s Labour Government.

This is 13% higher than this time last year (16,170) but 3% lower than the total at this stage in 2022 (18,978).

The highest number of arrivals recorded in a single day so far this year was 882 on June 18, with the second highest logged on May 1 (711), both under the previous government prior to the general election.

Downing Street said Channel crossings will likely become more common over the summer when the number of arrivals is typically higher amid better weather conditions.

But shadow home secretary James Cleverly accused Labour of sending “the wrong signal” by ditching the previous Tory government’s troubled Rwanda plan, which ministers of the time argued could deter Channel crossings.

The ex-home secretary and Conservative leadership hopeful claimed the numbers showed the Government’s “phantom border command clearly isn’t working”.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said: “We’ve been very clear in the weeks leading up to the summer that we know the summer is a challenging time, and we expect to see increases before we see improvements.

“In line with that, we know that it is in these months that the criminal gangs seek to exploit people, taking ever more dangerous tactics and approaches, and tragically we saw that again yesterday with further deaths in the Channel.

“That’s why it’s vital that we work to smash the gangs who are responsible for that and who are risking lives in the Channel.”

Last month, Dina Al Shammari, 21, died while trying to cross the Channel with her three younger siblings and parents, who said they are Kuwaiti Bidoon, a stateless Arab minority, and fled the Gulf state in 2018.

Her mother, Amira Al Shammari, 52, told the PA news agency the family will have to attempt the journey again as they have “no options” but to seek asylum in the UK and had attempted the crossing five times before the night her eldest daughter died.

She told how the family believed there would be 60 people on the boat, but on the day of the crossing they discovered the numbers were “double”.

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