‘We Must Stop This Criminal Trade or More Lives Will Be Lost’: Farage as Migrant Drowns in English Channel

French Gendarmes patrol the beaches at Tardinghen near the northern port city of Calais on
DENIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Brexit leader Nigel Farage urged the government to stop the “criminal trade” organising illegal migration “or more lives will be lost”, as a 16-year-old Sudanese boat migrant has been found dead, drowning in the English Channel after trying to reach Britan in a small rubber boat from France.

On Wednesday, French Minister Delegate for Citizenship, Marlene Schiappa, announced that the Sudanese teenager was found dead on the beach of Sangatte in Calais, France, after disappearing Tuesday night in the Channel.

“Immense sadness: A 16-year-old Sudanese migrant who disappeared in the sea last night was found dead in the beach in Sangatte this morning,” Schiappa wrote on social media.

“This unbearable tragedy moves us even more, with [French interior minister] Gérald Darmanin, against smugglers who take advantage of the distress of human beings,” she went on to say.

Commenting on the tragic loss of life, Nigel Farage said: “The death of a young man in the Channel is very sad. Right now there are boats out there in worsening conditions.”

“We must stop this criminal trade, or more lives will be lost,” Farage urged.

Home Secretary Priti Patel — who has come under increasing pressure for the Home Office’s failure to stop the record numbers of boat migrants pouring across the Channel — said the death of the migrant is “an upsetting and tragic loss of a young life”.

“This horrendous incident serves as a brutal reminder of the abhorrent criminal gangs and people smugglers who exploit vulnerable people,” Patel said.

The danger posed to migrants making the perilous journey across the English Channel —  as opposed to entering the country legally — was also demonstrated last August, when an Iraqi national drowned while attempting to swim to the UK from France.

The Iraqi man was reportedly refused asylum status from Germany. He was found washed up on the coast of Belgium wearing swimming flippers and “covered in fishnets with plastic bottles… to make it more easy to swim for him.”

So far this year, over 4,500 illegal migrants have been brought ashore by UK Border Force, compared to 1,890 during the entirety of 2019.

The pace of illegal boat migration has been feverishly ramping up over the past weeks, with 1,004 reported to successfully reached British shores between the 4th and 13th of August.

The British government has been trying to negotiate a deal with France — modelled after the Operation Sovereign Borders policy implemented by former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott — that would see boat migrants immediately returned to the European country.

There has been no indication that France will agree to such a plan, with reports indicating the wealthy nation is demanding Britain pay an additional £30 million to halt the practice.

Last week, the mayor of Calais said that suggestions that the UK may send the Royal Navy into the Channel to deter illegal migrants would be a “declaration of maritime war“.

Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka

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