A freshly landed migrant was transferred directly to hospital in Dover on Wednesday after reportedly having been stabbed while aboard a people smuggler boat at sea, carrying its cargo of irregulars to Britain’s shores.
A migrant was stabbed while aboard a smuggler’s boat taking him to the United Kingdom across the English Channel, having to be taken to hospital for treatment. The injuries were described as not being life threatening and the victim was put onto a smaller lifeboat to be taken ashore while the remaining 60 migrants who had been on the smuggler boat were loaded onto the larger Dover lifeboat, states GB News.
Kent Police said, per The Sun, that “officers are carrying out enquiries to establish the full circumstances, including where, when and how the injuries were sustained”, but made no mention of any arrests having taken place so far.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Picture date: Wednesday March 20, 2024. (Photo by Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images)
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard the RNLI Dover Lifeboat following a small boat incident in the Channel. Picture date: Wednesday March 20, 2024. (Photo by Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images)
A total of eight ‘small boats’, as they are called, are reported to have landed on Wednesday carrying some 450 migrants to the United Kingdom. No other day this year has been busier, and trends from previous years suggest as the Spring makes itself felt and better weather arrives, the number of boats and daily migrant totals will rise considerably.
In the late summer of 2023, 872 migrants arrived in 15 boats in one day, and thousand-migrant weeks were not unknown, even in a year where boat arrival levels had fallen compared to previous years.
The alleged stabbing would be just the latest act of extreme violence visited on migrants while in the ‘care’ of smuggling gangs across Europe, where individuals handing over thousands of dollars to be smuggled into European states have all too frequently been enslaved, raped, and killed. Just this week, Spanish police arrested three over the deaths of five migrants who were thrown overboard a smuggler boat while between Africa and Europe.
The conditions for this brutal trade of human trafficking to flourish is permitted by European states, which decide to leave their borders in a barely-defended state, encouraging the flourishing of criminal gangs.
As expressed by former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who stopped the boats to his country altogether and consequently stopped the deaths, responsible border control saves lives. As reported, he told an audience in Prague: “Effective border protection is not for the squeamish, but it is absolutely necessary to save lives and to preserve nations. The truly compassionate thing to do is: stop the boats and stop the deaths – and, for more than two years now, there have been no illegal arrivals by boat in Australia and the drownings have stopped.”
