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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
World
RFI

Nearly 30,000 migrants crossed Channel to UK last year

Migrants picked up at sea by an Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat are escorted ashore at Dungeness, on the southeast coast of England. AFP - BEN STANSALL

London, (AFP) – Nearly 30,000 migrants crossed the Channel from mainland Europe to Britain in small boats in 2023, an annual drop of more than a third, according to government figures released on Monday.

But the unauthorised arrival of 29,437 people on the southeast English coast is still the second-largest yearly tally since officials began publishing the numbers in 2018.

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