Border chief warns Channel mass casualty event is 'only a matter of time' after one boat carried 230 migrants
A overcrowded Channel dinghy carrying migrants, as Major General Duncan Capps warned MPs that smugglers are now packing up to 230 people onto single vessels, with a mass casualty incident "only a matter of time.Major General Duncan Capps, who told MPs that winter crossings from Normandy — nearly 60 nautical miles away — risk proving fatal for the roughly 3,800 migrants now gathered in camps around Calais and Dunkirk.
Almost 3,800 migrants are now camped between Calais and Dunkirk, double the usual number, Major General Duncan Capps told MPs. Smugglers are shifting launches south to Normandy, a crossing of nearly 60 nautical miles. 'If people try that in the winter we are going to have loss of life,' he warned the Home Affairs Committee. He called this his 'number one concern'.
Crossings are down 43 per cent this year, at just under 21,000 so far.
NCA chief Rob Jones said a crossing now costs between 1,000 and 2,000 euros.
Most of those waiting are single men from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan.
