Sudanese National Sentenced to Five Years For Providing Boats to Channel Migrants

A Sudanese national has been sentenced to five years in prison by a French court after being found guilty of supplying boats to illegal immigrants looking to cross the English Channel from Northern France.

Sudanese national Abdulnasser Abdulkarim was sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Boulogne-sur-Mer after being found guilty of providing around 20 boats for illegal migrants and being part of a larger migrant smuggling network from May until July of 2021.

Abdulkarim had previously been convicted of the same crime in August of 2020 and was identified last year as continuing to provide boats to migrants after his phone number was given to police by a migrant intercepted trying to cross the English Channel.

The 32-year-old was arrested on July 1st last year after police had wanted to take him into custody since mid-May. At the time of this arrest, the Sudanese national was found with a vehicle that had four canoes that were believed to have been destined for migrants wishing to cross illegally into the United Kingdom, the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants reports.

Just days after his arrest, Abdulkarim managed to escape police custody after feigning an illness and running away after being taken to a hospital in Calais. He was arrested again in February of this year and given an eight-month sentence for his escape and a ban from living on French territory.

The sentence comes just a month after a trio of Iraqi-Kurds were sentenced by a court in Dunkirk for their roles as part of a migrant smuggling network.

The three men, who were given sentences between two and a half and five years in prison, were involved in around 20 crossings of the English Channel from May of 2021 to January of this year.

So far this year, over 6,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the English Channel and arrived in the UK, with 181 arriving on Good Friday alone. Last Wednesday a total of 651 illegals arrived on the shores of southern England, a record for the year so far.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.