London: The British government is under renewed pressure on Sunday as six migrants drowned in the English Channel and 59 were rescued after their vessel sank off the French coast.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she spoke to UK Border Force teams as she expressed her grief over the “tragic” loss of lives.
The Opposition Labour Party and campaigners renewed their calls on the government to act on the small boat crisis of unsafe vessels being used by migrants to cross over illegally into the UK.
“My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the tragic loss of life in the Channel today. This morning I spoke with our Border Force teams who have been supporting the French authorities in response to this incident,” Braverman tweeted on Saturday.
The overloaded vessel got into difficulty and capsized 20km off Sangatte in France on Saturday. Five French ships, two British ships and a helicopter were involved in the rescue operation to save lives.
“This incident is sadly another reminder of the extreme dangers of crossing the Channel in small boats and how vital it is that we break the people smugglers’ business model and stop the boats,” a UK government spokesperson said.
Labour’s shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock, accused the government of having “no workable plan” to sort out the asylum system.
“It’s time to end the small boats nightmare we can’t sit by as more lives are put at risk. The country deserves better than this mess,” he writes in the Sunday Mirror’.
The Conservative Party government also faced pressure on the issue from within its own ranks, with former Tory chairman Jake Berry calling for “radical changes” to turn the tide.
“We have a moral duty, both to our own citizens and those asylum seekers, to act,” he writes in the Sunday Express’.
Meanwhile, human rights groups are urging the government to create more safe routes for asylum seekers to the UK, with the Refugee Council warning “more people will die” unless urgent action is taken.
“This terrible loss of life demonstrates yet again the need for a system of safe passage to the UK for refugees,” said refugee charity Care4Calais.
The incident came in the wake of a backlash over the UK government’s plan to house asylum seekers on a barge docked in south-west England after the first set of migrants had to be removed just days after being moved in over dangerous bacteria fears.
The Bibby Stockholm, a large floating vessel docked at Portland in Dorset opened up to its first set of migrants earlier this week amid controversy as human rights groups questioned its suitability as a long-term accommodation.
However, the government insisted that it was an essential part of its plans to address the soaring taxpayer-funded hotel bills to house migrants while their asylum claims are processed. But on Friday it emerged that bacteria which causes legionnaires’ disease, a kind of pneumonia, was found in the water supply and all 39 migrants had to be moved out to alternate accommodation.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made “stop the boats” one of his government’s top priorities as he pledged to clamp down on people smugglers facilitating migrants landing up on the country’s shores illegally.
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