About 40 migrants were rescued in the waters between southern England and northern France on Christmas Day, amid a spike in attempts by migrants to cross the English Channel to British shores on small boats, British and French authorities said.
The French regional maritime authority said in a statement that a small rubber boat with a failed engine was spotted on Tuesday off the coast of Calais.
A police helicopter monitoring the area directed a tugboat to the stranded migrants, the prefecture said.
Photo: AP / Marine Nationale
Eight migrants, including two children, were found aboard the boat and handed over to British authorities, it said, without providing the passengers’ nationalities.
Calais, a port city on one end of a Channel tunnel that connects France and England by train, has long been a magnet for migrants fleeing conflict or poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
French officials two years ago closed a makeshift camp that swelled to a population of 10,000 at one point as people waited to try to hop trucks taking ferries or trains to England.
The channel has seen a spike in migrants attempting the trip from France to England in dinghies or other small boats.
The British Home Office said that border agents responded to five separate boating incidents in English waters starting early on Christmas Day involving about 40 passengers, who said they were from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
The office told Britain’s Press Association that all received medical evaluations and were sent on for immigration interviews.
Social welfare agencies would assume care of the two children among the passengers, the news agency reported.
The office put the number of England-bound migrants the French tugboat took on at nine, not eight.
The French maritime authority said that the initial sighting of the boat estimated nine were aboard, but the tugboat crew that reached them found only eight.
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