London 15 August, London : More than 20000 people have been seen traveling across the English Channel from France in small boats this year, figures from the government reveal.The Ministry of Defence on Sunday stated that 607 had been identified the day before, the third time that the number has exceeded 600 since the beginning of 2022, the dpa news agency said.
The provisional total for the year to 20,017.
The number of crossings was 28,526 recorded in 2021.
At this time in the year before, just 11,300 crossings had taken place.
There were 3,618 crossings discovered in August to date, with 1,694 in the last week, according the Ministry of Defence.
The most high daily number of people in 2022 through this date occurred on August 1st when 696 people travelled across in 14 vessels.
Saturday’s 607 crossings also involved 14 boats equivalent of 43 people per boat.
1185 people travelled towards the UK on November 11, 2021the highest number recorded since the beginning of 2020.
The quantity of people arriving in the UK in small vessels coming from France after navigating the busy shipping lanes has been increasing in recent times.
A total of 299 were identified in 2018 and were then 1,843 in 2019 and 8,466 in 2020, and 28,526 the previous year, according to official figures.
Despite the increase in numbers, the UK’s tiny boat arrivals are just a small fraction of the amount of people who travel to the continent of Europe.
The refugee agency show that at the least 120,441 refugees came in Europe through the Mediterranean via sea and land in 2021.
