Two boats stopped by Border Force in latest of growing number of such incidents

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Campaigners have called on ministers to allow refugees to “apply safely” for asylum from outside the UK after two boats carrying 40 people were intercepted off the Kent coast.

Officers from UK Border Force stopped the boats, which were carrying men, women and children, as they made their way across the Channel in what was the latest of a growing number of such crossings since last year.

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A witness told the BBC he had seen one group of people being stopped by Border Force officers, who used a siren and loudhailers to instruct them to put on life jackets. They were then brought onboard the Border Force boat from a crowded rubber dinghy.

The Home Office said those onboard told officials they were from Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, and after being medically assessed would be interviewed by immigration officers.

Since November 2018, more than 700 people including about 70 children have crossed the channel in small boats. In December the home secretary, Sajid Javid, declared a major incident, prompting the recall of two Border Agency cutters from overseas operations.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Home Secretary Sajid Javid meeting Border Force staff in January 2019. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Anyone crossing the Channel in a small boat is taking a huge risk with their life and the lives of their children.

“It is an established principle that those in need of protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach and since January more than 35 people who arrived illegally in the UK in small boats have been returned to Europe.”

But Bridget Chapman, of the Kent Refugee Action Network, which supports people claiming asylum in the UK, said: “If the British government really wanted to deal with the problem, they’d set up an office in France and let people apply safely. A lot of the people making this journey are Iranian and Iraqi Kurds, an oppressed minority, so they have a very good claim for asylum.”

She said that since the camp near Calais had shut down, refugees continued to come to the French coast. “Several hundred people are now sleeping rough in Paris. All we’ve done is move this issue around without ever dealing with it and that is cruel.”

She said that of the 68 million displaced people around the world, only 27,000 had applied to come to the UK in the year to June 2018.

“In 1914, 250,000 Belgian refugees came here and on the busiest day, 19,000 people arrived in Folkestone. I do not understand how we could take them but not 700 people over a few months. When did we become so heartless?”

It costs up to £6,000 to buy a place on a boat from France, according to people who have made the journey.

Charlie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, said that “more migrants have arrived so far this year than arrived in the whole of last year” and described the situation as a “crisis”.

“The Home Office needs to regain control of our borders and seek a proper agreement with the French to stop these people leaving the French coast,” he said.

“This is not just about border security. We’ve got to stop vulnerable people being exploited by criminal trafficking gangs.

“And protect life – these are overcrowded boats with men, women and children aboard.

“There is a real risk of a tragedy in the middle of the Channel resulting in loss of life.”