An overcrowded mega-dinghy carrying more than 60 migrants has spent more than 30 hours in the Channel en route to England after setting off from Normandy with a full escort.
The oversized inflatable cast off from Port-en-Bessin, near Bayeux, at about 10am on Monday carrying an estimated 50 people.
Ouest France reported that another 11 people boarded the boat at Cote Fleurie, 30 miles east along the coast, at 6pm yesterday before heading into the Channel.
Under the authority of the French maritime prefecture, four lifeboats from the Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer – France‘s answer to the RNLI – were dispatched to monitor the boats alongside the tugboat Abeille Liberté.
More than 24 hours later, the boat has been sitting at the heart of the Channel with the French tug following behind – and a pair of RNLI lifeboats from Hastings and Eastbourne seemingly on their way to meet it. They were launched shortly after 11am.
Daniel Thomas, the hard-Right anti-migrant activist who calls himself ‘Danny Tommo’ online, said on social media he was heading into the Channel to find the boat.
A spokesman for the French maritime prefecture told the Daily Mail today: ‘This dinghy is monitored by assets coordinated by MRCC Gris-Nez within its search and rescue region, as part of its search and rescue mission and in response to the obligations of international law and the law of the sea.’
The RNLI – whose volunteers have faced abuse after rescuing migrants – confirmed to the Mail its boats had been tasked at the request of HM Coastguard.
And the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the migrants would be transferred to Border Security Command.
File photo of a migrant dinghy leaving Gravelines, France on Monday. People smugglers are moving their activities further west to avoid detection
French authorities provide full escorts to dinghies setting off from Normandy because the voyage to the UK is far longer than it is from traditional launch beaches around Calais and Dunkirk – as much as 100 miles, four times that from Dover to Calais.
A spokesman for local rescue services said of the migrant dinghy: ‘The boat was in a very bad way, and very low in the water, with just a single small outboard motor to power it.
‘The sea was calm, and weather conditions were good, but the decision was taken to escort the boat, without intervening.’
UK authorities are understood to be monitoring the dinghy, and have plans to deal with arrivals further along the coast.
A Government spokesperson said: ‘The Border Security Command works around the clock to protect our border and will continue to detain, check and process every small boat arrival.’
A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson said this afternoon: ‘HM Coastguard is responding to a report of a small boat in the Channel, south of the UK central south coast.
‘Rescue vessels have been sent, supported by an HM Coastguard aeroplane, to collect the people and safely transfer them to UK Border Force.’
The departure from Port-en-Bessin – some 160 miles from Calais and 180 miles from Dunkirk, the traditional setting-off points for migrant journeys – confirms authorities’ suspicions that people smugglers are moving west to avoid detection.
By first light on Tuesday morning, there were no more reports about the location of the boat, but it was believed to still be at sea.
Mr Thomas, an associate of Tommy Robinson, posted a YouTube livestream on Tuesday of himself on a high-speed boat at sea.
He said: ‘We’re going to track it, we’re going to get to it, we’re going to document that handover – see who it is that’s picking them up.’
He suggested that activists from anti-migrant group Patriot Platform would be mobilised to meet any boat bringing migrants back to Britain.
He labelled the action ‘Portsmouth 2.0’ – after masked activists clashed with police in the city earlier this month as a dinghy carrying 140 migrants was escorted in by the Coastguard and Border Force.
Mr Thomas said: ‘Our boys and our ladies will be headed in that direction. There comes a time where you’ve just got to get things done and this is about getting things done.’
The crossing comes after a dinghy carrying up to seven migrants evaded French and Home Office patrols in the Channel and landed on a rocky shoreline near Folkestone, Kent yesterday.
Five people were detained and passed to Border Security Command. It is the first undetected landing in a year. The Home Office has labelled it an ‘isolated’ incident.
Enforcement action along established casting off points around Dover and Calais has seen police slash dinghies to thwart migrants’ journeys
Defence minister Luke Pollard dismissed suggestions the government had lost control of the border.
He said on Tuesday morning: ‘Our borders are secure, but we want to make them stronger.’
Asked by LBC Radio how the boat slipped through, Mr Pollard said a Home Office investigation was under way to determine what had happened, without going into detail.
He also said: ‘We’re aware that the boat that got through, everyone has been detained on it.
‘But because crossings are the lowest in six years, because asylum backlog is being cut, and because we’re closing asylum hotels, we know what we’re doing is working.
‘But where there are challenges in that system, we need to get it right because this is not just a matter of public confidence.
‘This is a clear political objective that we have set as a government to secure our borders, and where there are gaps in that, we will close them.’
Police in France are continuing to crack down on attempted migrant crossings – with action yesterday including officers slashing a dinghy with a knife and dragging its outboard motor from the water.
On Friday, a press briefing was held in which Jean-Benoît Albertini, the prefect of Seine-Maritime and Normandy, confirmed a ‘significant’ rise in dinghy departures along the north-west coast of France.
The migrants are most often from Sudan, Syria, Kurdistan and Iraq, BFM reported.
Extra resources are being allocated, funded by the bilateral agreement between Britain and France to fund French border policing along the coast.
Smugglers’ desperate searches for new routes in order to stay under the radar have consequences for Britons greeted by the unexpected arrivals.
Efforts by law enforcement to disrupt the supply chain for smaller boats have forced smugglers to load more people onto bigger craft.
As well as moving west, those putting migrants onto boats bound for Britain – charging around £2,000 to each one – have also turned to ‘mega-dinghies’, some capable of carrying more than 100 migrants at a time.
Earlier this month, a mega-dinghy carrying 140 migrants reached the UK from Normandy after what was believed to be the longest-ever migrant Channel crossing.
The 46ft craft was shadowed by five French rescue boats and two helicopters in case it got into difficulty.
It completed a then-unprecedented 70-mile English Channel voyage to Britain in around 14 hours, before reaching Portsmouth.
Scores of anti-migrant protesters tried to prevent the boat landing on Eastney Beach but failed.
The launch site, close to Utah beach, where thousands of Allied troops landed in France on D-Day in 1944, was some 170 miles from Calais as the crow flies.
Some 17,480 migrants have arrived after crossing the Channel by boat so far this year, including 5,011 since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
The 2026 total is down by 46 per cent compared to the same point last year.
