A number of people were seen being brought ashore by an RNLI lifeboat at Dover, Kent, on Tuesday.
31 May 2022
Young children and women are among the latest people to arrive in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats.
A number of people were seen being brought ashore in a RNLI vessel at Dover, Kent, on Tuesday.
The arrivals came as the Ministry of Defence confirmed that 32 people were brought ashore on Monday after six days without any crossings.
A total of 9,362 migrants have reached the UK after navigating busy shipping lanes from France in small boats such as dinghies since the start of 2022, according to analysis of Government data by the PA news agency.
A total of 28,526 people made the crossing in 2021, compared with 8,466 in 2020, 1,843 in 2019 and 299 in 2018, according to official figures.
The Home Office also released details last week showing that people fleeing Afghanistan made up almost a quarter of the migrants crossing the Channel in the first three months of the year.
Out of 4,540 people detected arriving by small boats between January and March 2022, some 24% (1,094) were Afghan nationals, according to the Government figures.
This was the most out of any nationality recorded, followed by 16% who were Iranian (722) and 15% (681) Iraqi – which both typically outrank Afghans in the numbers.
