English Channel
U.K. Vows to Press Ahead With Rwanda Deportations
LONDON — The British government on Wednesday promised to press on with plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, a day after a flight scheduled to take the first group was grounded at the last minute by legal challenges. Speaking in Parliament, the British home secretary, Priti Patel, labeled the decision from the European Court […]
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‘Our Boat Was Surrounded by Dead Bodies’: Witnessing a Migrant Tragedy
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The boat packed with migrants was about halfway across the English Channel when one of the passengers spotted two orange life jackets bobbing in the water. The seas were rough, and it was only when they got closer that Zana Hamawandani saw the vests contained dead bodies. Soon, other bodies started appearing. […]
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France-U.K. Acrimony Impedes Progress on Channel Crossings
“Migration feeds into this sense that Boris Johnson doesn’t understand his blue-collar political base,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent. And unlike earlier fears of immigration, he said, the channel crossings are “a much more emotive and symbolic form of migration that amplifies a sense among some voters that […]
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Undeterred by Channel’s Perils, Desperate Migrants Still Plan to Cross
CALAIS, France — The lights on the opposite side of the English Channel were visible on Thursday, emboldening Emanuel Malbah, an asylum seeker who has been living in a makeshift camp on France’s northern coastline for the past week, dreaming of making a crossing. “I don’t believe that I’ll die,” he said. “I believe I’ll […]
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27 Migrants Drown Trying to Go From France to U.K. by Boat
PARIS — At least 27 people drowned in frigid waters off the coast of France on Wednesday, after a boat carrying migrants trying to reach Britain capsized in the English Channel, one of the worst death tolls in recent years for migrants attempting the dangerous crossing. Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said that the dead, […]
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