190 migrants rescued in English Channel over weekend

By AFP
December 04, 2023

PARIS: Some 190 migrants have been rescued off the Calais coast in northern France since Friday night while trying to cross the English Channel on dinghies to reach Britain, local French authorities said on Saturday, without specifying from where those migrants had come.

Royal National Lifeboat Institution Severn class lifeboat, the City of London II, makes its way towards migrants travelling in an inflatable boat across the English Channel, bound for Dover on the south coast of England. — AFP/File
Royal National Lifeboat Institution Severn class lifeboat, the City of London II, makes its way towards migrants travelling in an inflatable boat across the English Channel, bound for Dover on the south coast of England. — AFP/File

The Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and currents are strong. Human traffickers typically overload the dinghies, leaving them barely afloat and at the mercy of waves as they try to reach British shores.