Last week, the United Kingdom home secretary convened a summit with ministers, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement bodies to discuss small boat crossings, focused on stopping “smuggling gangs.” This followed the deaths of at least 12 people, including a pregnant woman and six children, attempting to reach the UK by boat, in what is believed to be one of the deadliest incidents in the English Channel this decade.
Around 70 people were reportedly on board the flimsy and overcrowded dinghy, which capsized near the French coast. French authorities said that many who died appeared to be from Eritrea, whose nationals, including schoolchildren, continue to flee serious human rights violations and widespread repression at home as well as conflicts in the region.
The UK government called it a “horrifying and deeply tragic incident,” but then doubled down on dismantling “smuggling gangs” and bolstering border security and said there are no plans to expand safe pathways to the UK. France responded, as Human Rights Watch has documented in the past, by deploying riot police and machines to clear the encampment near Calais, where the people who died at sea were said to have been staying, and forcing some of those remaining in the camps onto buses to the north-east of France.
The new UK government’s focus on law enforcement and border security will not prevent deaths at sea. There is little evidence that restrictive and harmful deterrence policies are effective and may encourage people to attempt ever more dangerous crossings from more hidden points along the French coast.
Instead, the UK and France should ensure robust cooperation on search and rescue for people in distress at sea. As many organisations have consistently called for, the UK government should urgently open more safe routes, including allowing people to claim asylum at the UK’s border in France and ensuring reunification with family members in the UK. This should not impact the right of people to seek asylum in the UK through irregular means and migrants should not be penalised for doing so, as guaranteed by the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which the UK is party.
This is a key moment for the new Labour government to develop humane asylum and border policies, including by repealing the Nationality and Borders Act and Illegal Migration Act, prioritising search and rescue, and opening safe pathways to save lives.
