A 27-year-old man, whose identity has not been specified, was arrested for “endangering the lives of others during a sea journey to the UK,” the NCA, the British crime fighting agency, announced. A Sudanese man was arrested on Friday in southeast England as part of the investigation open in France into the death of four migrants on Thursday during a clandestine Channel crossing, according to the British police. The man, whose identity has not been specified, was detained for “endangering the lives of others during a sea journey to the UK,” the NCA, the British crime fighting agency, said.
It was also clarified that the arrest took place while he was in a detention center in Kent. He was placed in custody. The two men and two women who lost their lives on Thursday were swept away by the currents while trying to board a boat with dozens of other people. This brings the number of deaths this year to six during risky crossings on makeshift boats.
The risky method of “taxi-boats” involves smugglers directly picking up candidates for exile in the water to avoid security forces on land preventing departures from the beaches. In a statement, the NCA stated that 38 people were taken care of in France and 74 migrants continued their journey to the UK.
Assisting French authorities in their investigation, this is the second incident of this kind since the beginning of the year near the Franco-British border. On April 1st, two other migrants died during one of these risky and often chaotic taxi-boat embarkations near Gravelines (Nord). Clandestine immigration from the northern coast of France to England has been a recurring point of contention in Paris-London relations.
Under pressure from the UK, France changed its intervention strategy at the end of the year to intercept taxi-boats at sea. However, these interceptions are currently rare, as certain conditions must be met to avoid endangering human lives. London would like its financial contribution to securing the border by French authorities to be conditioned on achieving a higher interception target for vessels, according to several British media outlets.
