Channel smuggling shifts south as migrants face longer, deadlier crossings

Smugglers are moving small boat launches away from the beaches closest to Britain, sending migrants on far longer and more hazardous journeys across the English Channel, French authorities have said. Departures are now increasingly taking place from points further south and west of Calais and Dunkirk, stretching the voyage towards Portsmouth and beyond.

One vessel launched from Normandy last week spent more than 30 hours at sea before being intercepted and escorted to Dover by Border Force. Attempts from Normandy have been unusual until now, but officials in the neighbouring department of Seine-Maritime say 58 attempts have already been recorded this year, compared with 30 in the whole of last year.

That geographic spread comes despite a significant fall in overall Channel arrivals. Government figures point to a sharp drop in the number of people reaching Britain by small boat this year, prompting ministers to claim they are "bearing down" on dangerous crossings. But while the total volume is falling, the map of departure points appears to be widening — a pattern that officials and researchers say is the result of tighter policing at the traditional launch sites.

Earlier this month, another boat was met by lifeboat crews from the Isle of Wight after departing from the Cherbourg area. Such journeys are close to 80 miles (128km) from the beaches used by most Channel smugglers in recent years, meaning those on board face many more hours exposed to wind, swell and cold water.

Audrey Baconnais-Rosez, the local government representative in Seine-Maritime, said the pattern of attempts had changed in two ways at once. "The number of attempts to cross the Channel has increased in number and it is getting further and further from the north of France," she said. She added that French authorities are nonetheless "managing to stop half of them".

To respond, the number of gendarmes patrolling the coastline around Dieppe and onward towards the Le Havre area has been increased. "Nowadays it's about 50 gendarmes on the coast and we have nearly 20 police officers in Dieppe and the surrounding area to try to stop them," she said. The Dieppe area, which sits between Calais and Cherbourg, has become a focal point of the new routes.

Enforcement efforts have not been confined to the water. Baconnais-Rosez said some smugglers are still attempting to reach Britain by hiding among passengers on ferries bound for Newhaven in Sussex. "We are still intercepting them and we are bringing them to justice as well," she added.

Dr Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Migration Observatory, said it is highly plausible that the new routes are a direct response to French and British police disrupting boat launches in northern France. He said it simply makes no sense from an organiser's point of view to send vulnerable passengers out at sea for so long when a shorter crossing could be completed. "It's not at all optimal for these boats to set off so far away from their intended destination," he said. "Some of these journeys would not be 20 miles (32km) but 50 miles (80km) or even more, which substantially increases the danger of course on board the boats."

David McFarlane, a marine safety consultant, explained why extra distance translates directly into extra risk. The longer the voyage, the greater the chance of meeting hazardous sea conditions. "If a low pressure system is developing over the Atlantic, it can mean that in advance of the winds picking up, a swell will start to increase, with the increased likelihood of sea sickness for some, which can lead to dehydration," he said.

Weather can also deteriorate with little warning. "The wind of course can pick up very quickly and waves can get up to 3.5m (11ft) in height in the Channel," McFarlane said. "This increases the risk of the boat being swamped by sea water, with the obvious danger to human life by drowning or exposure."

The broader trend in arrivals, according to figures compiled by the BBC, shows how dramatically the picture has changed in less than a decade. Recorded arrivals by small boat rose from 299 in 2018 to 1,843 in 2019 and 8,462 in 2020, before climbing to 28,526 in 2021 and peaking at 45,755 in 2022. Numbers then fell to 29,437 in 2023, before rising again to 36,816 in 2024 and 41,472 in 2025.

This year, however, 19,135 people had crossed by small boat from France between 1 January and 27 September — a 42% fall on the same period a year earlier. Even so, that remains the fifth highest total recorded for the years charted by the same point in the year, and these crossings have been the most common way for people to be detected entering the UK illegally since 2020.

Almost all those arriving by small boat claim asylum, which under international law allows them to remain in the country while their application is considered. Small boat arrivals accounted for 40% of asylum applications between July 2025 and June 2026.

Conditions on board are also worsening. Boats that reached the UK between 28 September 2025 and 27 September 2026 carried an average of 67 people each — more than double the average recorded in 2021. Experts say such overcrowding makes crossings considerably more dangerous; according to the United Nations, at least 84 people died attempting to cross the Channel in 2024.

For officials in Seine-Maritime, the immediate battle is one of dispersal: adding gendarmes to a coastline where launch sites keep shifting. But with journeys lengthening, weather risks compounding and boats carrying more people than ever, the shift south of Calais and Dunkirk risks trading one category of danger for another.