The number of covert crossings, multiplied by three in 2021, could reach a new record this year.

It is the first time in eleven days that the British government – which updates data daily on these illegal crossings – reports boats in the English Channel, a late April marked by violent winds and a restless sea.

The British Navy reported 254 people aboard seven boats on Sunday in a bid to control illegal crossings in the English Channel in a bid to better trace them.

Images published in British media also show migrants continuing to arrive in Dover on Monday.

Crossing still rising

In total, since the beginning of the year, around 7,000 people have crossed the Channel in makeshift boats to the British coast, according to PA agency calculations.

This is three times more than the balance sheet of the corresponding period last year.

While Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made the fight against illegal immigration his priority after Brexit, crossings continue to rise, tripling in 2021, one marked by the deaths of 27 migrants in a shipwreck in late November. The year.

According to the Interior Ministry, more than 28,500 people made these dangerous crossings in 2021, compared to 8,466 in 2020, 1,843 in 2019 and 299 in 2018.

Strong criticism of the new law

To discourage crossings, the government last week instituted a controversial reform of the right of asylum into law that specifically plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda while they request asylum.

The new law has been sharply criticized by international and refugee aid organizations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Wednesday expressed regret over a text that “undermines established international law and practice to protect refugees”.