A fresh surge of migrants crossing the English Channel has been reported, with hundreds attempting the journey toward the UK this morning. People smuggling gangs exploited a brief weather window of less than 12 hours to launch dinghies along a 60-mile stretch of the French coast, from Dunkirk down to Wissant near Boulogne.
At least 400 people were sighted attempting to cross the Channel, with several boats already reaching British waters. The arrivals follow 74 individuals who landed in Dover aboard the Border Force vessel Typhoon last night. Authorities confirmed that the latest crossings included 15 women and one child. French officials also reported that a pregnant woman and a three-year-old child were hospitalized in Calais after suffering hypothermia, their boat having been forced to turn back with around 50 passengers on board.
Maritime security sources condemned the actions of criminal smuggling networks, describing the operations as “reckless” and profit-driven, with little concern for the safety of the migrants.
The recent surge comes after more than 700 migrants crossed over the weekend, taking the total number of arrivals in 2025 past 40,000— in contrast with 36,816 known arrivals for the whole of last year.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has slammed the government’s handling of the crisis, pointing out that the UK has seen a dramatic rise since last year.
For Farage, this also raises security concerns, warning: “It seems barely a day goes by where we don’t see a serious sexual assault or rape being committed by a young man [from one of] these dinghies. And I’ve said, for a decade, that if you allow people who come from cultures where women aren’t even second-class citizens to come into Britain, beware of what the results might be.”
