Desperate distress calls from small boats have been revealed

“There’s a hole in the boat, a lot of water and not everyone has life jackets.”

This is one of hundreds of distress calls made from small boats in the English Channel to a humanitarian hotline in 2024, revealing the chilling details of the journey that more than 30,000 people have made so far this year.

Utopia 56, a humanitarian organization supporting migrants in northern France, received around 400 calls for help from ships trying to reach England – including from inflatable boats carrying children – from early January to mid-December.

Seen in call logs by The i-PaperSome reported fellow passengers falling into the water, others said they had holes in their boat or broken engines.

The boats are believed to have been overcrowded, with between 90 and 100 people accommodated on two boats, according to passengers.

Thirty-four of the boats that provided information to the hotline said they had between 70 and 80 people on board, while several said there were children and women.

Smuggling gangs are pushing more migrants onto small boats crossing the English Channel from France to avoid police patrols and increase their profits, aid workers say. This increases the risk of the boat capsizing or bursting.

The English Channel is the busiest sea route in the world, making the route even more dangerous on a small boat.

Some gangs use homemade boats made from plywood barely a millimeter thick, with “bouncy castle”-style pipes and tiny engines that risk breaking mid-trip.

“There is water in the boat,” reported a caller at 11:55 a.m. in mid-February.

A caller in June said his group found itself in “two leaky boats.” The following month, a caller said: “The engine broke and people fell into the water.”

“Some people are in the water. There are no life jackets. “You are in great distress,” says the call log from an incident in August.

A caller in November said: “The engine fell into the water. We’re drifting toward the coast.”

Utopia 56 runs a humanitarian hotline that migrants sometimes call when they find themselves in distress at sea. The organization then forwards the calls to the French or British coast guard, although in some cases the authorities were already present when the calls were made.

Labor has pledged to crack down on small boat crossings by dismantling the smuggling gangs that run the trips. But experts warned that a strict enforcement approach could simply push migrants to take more risks.

The total number of emergencies is not clear. The calls come from two separate logs that record them in slightly different ways, leading to possible differences, and some of the calls could come from the same boat.

Most calls were made from the sea around Calais and Grand-Synthe – both areas from which migrants depart – while a small number of calls were made from people on land concerned about the welfare of friends or family on board .

One of them came from a ferry that had discovered a dinghy in the English Channel.

Several were made in the early hours of the morning.

October saw the highest number of calls at 74, which could be weather-related. This was followed by 60 in February and 43 in November.

Due to lower wind speeds and higher temperatures, channel crossings are generally highest in mid-summer. Crossings in fall or winter can be even more dangerous due to biting winds and icy, choppy waters.

In September, six children and a pregnant woman died on the route in what was considered the worst canal disaster since 2021, when 27 people died trying to reach the UK.

Home Office figures show a total of 35,000 small boats arrived in 2024, compared to 29,000 last year and 45,000 the year before.

Experts warned that the transitions will not let up in 2025.

“We have already seen more deaths in the English Channel this year than any other year – this cannot continue in 2025,” said Dr. Wanda Wyporska, Managing Director of Safe Passage International. She called on the government to open new safe routes for people to get to the UK.

Last year, 99 percent of people who arrived on small boats applied for asylum, meaning they sought refuge in the UK because they were being persecuted or threatened in their own country.

To apply for asylum in the UK, a person must be physically present in the UK. There is no visa to enter the UK to apply for asylum.

According to the Oxford Migration Observatory, this means that people who do not have another visa – or come from the 67 countries that require a visa to enter the UK – have no legal route to applying for asylum in the UK.

Those who do not have access to a passport, either because they never had one or because it was lost or left behind while fleeing their homeland, are also unable to travel safely to the UK to claim asylum, the Observatory said.

The UK has some pathways for other types of refugee resettlement in the UK. Most are nationality-specific – for Afghans, Ukrainians and Hong Kongers – while some are administered by the United Nations, but people cannot apply for them.

Home Ministry sources said the ministry’s priority is to relocate those who have already been identified as eligible for relocation under these schemes.

Dr. Wyporska suggested that there could be an increase in the number of Syrian refugees if the promise of a new, fairer regime after the fall of dictator Bashir Al Assad is not fulfilled.

“We could see more people having to flee for their lives, and without safe escape routes, people may be left with no choice but to undertake dangerous journeys,” she said.

The number of Afghans taking small boats to Britain could fall, Dr. Vyporska.

“We have also finally seen arrivals under the programs for Afghans increase significantly in 2024, with nine times more Afghans arriving through them this year than last year.

“This year there was also a slight decrease in the number of Afghans crossing the Channel. While we cannot conclude that these trends are related, we could see these patterns continue next year.”

Dr. Wyporska predicted that the number of Sudanese nationals would remain high.

“We are also working with the Sudanese community, helping them reunite with their family amid the terrible war in Sudan. Many of them are unaccompanied children trying to join the little family that is left,” she said.

“We know that there are many Sudanese in northern France and they are one of the leading nationalities already crossing the English Channel.

“As the conflict and humanitarian situation in Sudan continues to worsen – with more children forced to leave their homes than anywhere else in the world – we are likely to see more people attempting to make this dangerous journey in the hope of to find protection here.”

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said: “Every year something stands out; There are significant numbers of people who come from countries such as Sudan, Afghanistan and Eritrea, where there is tyrannical rule or very serious conflict and many people are displaced.

“We must recognize that if there is war, bloodshed in countries where people have a connection to the UK – whether through historical ties or through large diaspora communities – people will continue to do what they can to get there “Terror or violence comes to Britain because the choice in their minds is between life and death.”

Mr Solomon said the Government’s plan to crack down on people smuggling gangs was “not a silver bullet”.

“There needs to be a directive on legal avenues. Small boat crossings will continue next year with no change in government policy. This isn’t going away.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings that endanger lives and jeopardize our border security.

“We will stop at nothing to destroy their business models and bring them to justice.”

The new Labor government has launched a £150m Border Force to boost efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute smugglers.