London, (Samajweekly) The UK Home Office has said that a record 290 people arrived in small boats in a single day, thus taking the migrant Channel crossings in the country to more than 2000 so far this year.
This is the highest single-day number recorded on February 25 after 358 people were recorded on January 17, The Evening Standard reported on Tuesday.
According to the figures published Monday, the migrants crossed in five boats with an estimated 58 people per boat.
Beginning this year, a union of Border Force officials in the UK warned that the number of people arriving in small boats is expected to rise again this year.
Last year, 29,437 migrants made the crossing, compared to 45,774 in 2022, according to figures from the UK Home Office, but the number was the second-highest since 2018 — about 1,000 above the total in 2021.
Migrants coming in small boats has been a major political issue in the UK with more than 45,000 migrants crossing the English Channel in that manner to reach the UK in 2022.
Ever since then, “stopping the boats” has been one of the top priorities of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government with the leader admitting that it is “not easy” to fix the problem overnight.
The government has also tried to send migrants to Rwanda following an agreement with the African country.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said last week that the country’s moves to facilitate the removal of asylum-seekers to Rwanda run contrary to the basic principles of the rule of law and risk delivering a serious blow to human rights.
