More than 10,000 migrants have made the life-threatening journey across the English Channel from France this year, far more than the estimated 8,500 people who arrived in all of 2020.
On Wednesday, more than 458 people made the crossing to the UK, the highest daily total yet.
That number – confirmed by the UK Home Office on Thursday morning – surpasses the previous daily high of 430 set on July 19, 2021.
Home Secretary Priti Patel and her department have repeatedly vowed to make the Channel route unviable, but crossings of the Channel – which is 53 kilometres wide at its narrowest point – continue without pause.
This week, Ms Patel met members of the Greek government during a two-day trip to discuss “shared challenges on illegal migration” before going out on patrol with the country's coastguard.
Last month, she announced a multimillion-pound funding package to help France improve security on its side of the Channel to stop people using its beaches as departure points for southern England.
On Wednesday at least 40 people were seen disembarking from a British lifeboat on Dungeness Beach in Kent after recent bad weather cleared and allowed small boat crossings to resume.
Last week, the Royal National Lifeboats Institution (RNLI) was dragged into a row about helping migrants and criticised as being a “migrant taxi service” for rescuing people who attempted the journey. The volunteer service said it had a duty to help those in distress.
France has stopped twice as many attempted crossings in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, officials said.
From January to July, police stopped 481 crossings, while 412 small boats that they know of successfully reached British shores.
"Our objective is to stop them before they head out," gendarmerie captain Ludovic Caulier said on a police patrol boat. "Once they are at sea it's basically too late."
Migrants pay on average of around €2,000 ($2,400) per person to the smugglers for the journey to Britain.
One 27-year-old Bedouin from Kuwait had been travelling across Europe for four years as a stateless refugee when he attempted the crossing recently.
"It was really horrible. It was a way of dying," Abdullah al Badri said as he recalled his voyage from France with 22 other migrants onboard his small boat.
"It was really not easy to go in the boat and I was saying to myself, 'what's going to happen? I'm going to die like the child from Syria'," he said, referring to three-year-old Alan Kurdi, found drowned on a Turkish beach in 2012.
Bella Sankey, director of charity Detention Action, said: “Overall asylum applications are dropping and much lower than they were in the 2000s, but the number of high Channel crossings shows that desperate people trying to save their lives will risk everything to reach safety.
“MPs need to act swiftly and should pass legislation to allow those with strong prospects of receiving protection here safe passage to the UK from northern France to seek asylum here.”
Dan O’Mahoney, Clandestine Channel Threat Commander for the Home Office, said: ”These dangerous small boat crossings, facilitated by criminal gangs, are putting lives at risk.”
He said the numbers are unacceptable and claimed that the government’s controversial New Plan for Immigration is the “only credible long term plan to fix the broken asylum system”.
At least 50,989 people have arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean by land and sea so far this year, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At least 1,016 people are estimated to be dead or missing, according to the same data.
Despite this, the UK continues to record fewer boat arrivals and asylum claims than many of its European counterparts, such as Italy and Greece.
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Japan
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Canada
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Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Kathryn Hawkes of House of Hawkes on being a good guest (because we’ve all had bad ones)
- Arrive with a thank you gift, or make sure you have one for your host by the time you leave.
- Offer to buy groceries, cook them a meal or take your hosts out for dinner.
- Help out around the house.
- Entertain yourself so that your hosts don’t feel that they constantly need to.
- Leave no trace of your stay – if you’ve borrowed a book, return it to where you found it.
- Offer to strip the bed before you go.
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
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The specs
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Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
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