https://www.arabnews.com/node/2139256/world
LONDON: People traffickers smuggling migrants across the English Channel are offering a “summer sale” to people wanting to reach the UK, promising safe passage and that “the French won’t stop you.”
The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that traffickers are advertising trips across the Channel for as little as £1,500 ($1,815) on social media, with talk of limited intervention from French authorities and unusually good weather contributing to an uptick in numbers attempting the journey.
The UK has seen a steady increase in people making the dangerous Channel crossing over the past year, with many coming from Syria and Iraq, but in particular from Afghanistan, following the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021.
However, the recent swell is also thought to have been driven by large numbers of Albanians — who made up more than one-third of arrivals by boat in the past six weeks — exploiting a loophole in UK asylum law, claiming that although their country is not at war nor do they face persecution, they are victims of trafficking and slavery.
One advert on TikTok said: “Don’t pay £17,800-£18,000. They are passing by every day, it has never been cheaper.” Another showed a group of people holding an Albanian flag smiling in a dinghy crossing the sea.
The price of a journey by dinghy across the Channel has dropped significantly in the past year after previously costing as much as £20,000 per person.
Competition has helped lower the price, with up to nine gangs now known to be operating trafficking routes by boat from France — and fears abound that the UK’s plans to deport people to Rwanda will make it more difficult to cross in the near future.
One smuggler using a TikTok account called @franc_gomone_angli1 told an undercover reporter from The Sun posing as a migrant that the UK’s Rwanda policy had been canceled, and that the country would put asylum seekers up in hotels.
“The French won’t stop you. On the contrary, they will escort you safely until you reach the UK water border,” he said….
LONDON: People traffickers smuggling migrants across the English Channel are offering a “summer sale” to people wanting to reach the UK, promising safe passage and that “the French won’t stop you.”
The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that traffickers are advertising trips across the Channel for as little as £1,500 ($1,815) on social media, with talk of limited intervention from French authorities and unusually good weather contributing to an uptick in numbers attempting the journey.
The UK has seen a steady increase in people making the dangerous Channel crossing over the past year, with many coming from Syria and Iraq, but in particular from Afghanistan, following the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021.
However, the recent swell is also thought to have been driven by large numbers of Albanians — who made up more than one-third of arrivals by boat in the past six weeks — exploiting a loophole in UK asylum law, claiming that although their country is not at war nor do they face persecution, they are victims of trafficking and slavery.
One advert on TikTok said: “Don’t pay £17,800-£18,000. They are passing by every day, it has never been cheaper.” Another showed a group of people holding an Albanian flag smiling in a dinghy crossing the sea.
The price of a journey by dinghy across the Channel has dropped significantly in the past year after previously costing as much as £20,000 per person.
Competition has helped lower the price, with up to nine gangs now known to be operating trafficking routes by boat from France — and fears abound that the UK’s plans to deport people to Rwanda will make it more difficult to cross in the near future.
One smuggler using a TikTok account called @franc_gomone_angli1 told an undercover reporter from The Sun posing as a migrant that the UK’s Rwanda policy had been canceled, and that the country would put asylum seekers up in hotels.
“The French won’t stop you. On the contrary, they will escort you safely until you reach the UK water border,” he said….
