A photo taken in Watten (Nord), on March 3, 2024, shows a small boat carrying migrants that capsized, causing the death of a 7-year-old girl.
The United Kingdom announced on Monday, March 4, a new customs partnership with France aimed at disrupting the supply chain of small boats used by smugglers for illegal crossings of migrants across the English Channel.
This initiative was at the heart of a meeting on Monday in Brussels of the “Calais group”, where the British Minister of the Interior, James Cleverly, met with representatives from France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, in the presence of the European Commission and its agencies.
“The United Kingdom and France will lead a new customs partnership, which they have invited other members of the Calais group to discuss in detail in April,” the British Ministry of the Interior said in a statement. This is an “initiative to work with countries along the supply chain” of the components, which “will build on the effective work already done to prevent departures of small boats from northern France.”
The participating countries will be able to “share information more effectively to disrupt the shipments of components of small boats” and combat these dangerous crossings, which have resulted in two deaths in recent days, including a 7-year-old girl.
“Working closely with our European neighbors is essential to solving the crisis of illegal immigration,” said James Cleverly in a statement, for whom this new partnership demonstrates London’s commitment to “break the economic model” of smugglers and “stop the boats,” a priority of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Since the beginning of the year, 2,006 migrants have made the crossing, according to a count by Agence France-Presse based on official data, after 30,000 in 2023 and a peak of 45,000 in 2022.
