The number of migrants travelling through Belgium on their way to the UK fell by 90% since 2018. Human traffickers are increasingly abandoning Belgium as a transit country in their attempts to smuggle migrants to the UK federal justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Flemish liberal) said Wednesday.
In 2018, Belgian police encountered nearly 13,000 migrants trekking through Belgium bound for other climes, usually the UK. 4,100 were counted in 2021. By last year the figure had fell to 1,065. Justice minister Van Quickenborne, partly attributes this decline to frequent police checks, comprehensive international cooperation against human trafficking, the use of data discovered on confiscated smartphones and strict penalties for human traffickers.
In West Flanders Province alone, 116 human traffickers were convicted since the beginning of 2019. In such cases prison sentences range to up to 15 years in jail.
"We absolutely want to avoid our country becoming a Valhalla for transmigration, and certainly for the smugglers behind these operations", says Van Quickenborne. "Two years ago, we set up the TransIT team to systematically analyse mobile phone data in the search for the networks behind the trafficking."
The TransIT team can count on five federal police in West Flanders.
"The team chiefly cooperates with local police and the maritime police", Van Quickenborne explains. "We will expand this cooperation to several police zones in the province. In addition, their information will be shared with the immigration department so that transmigrants can be deported to their country of origin."
The fact that climbing into trucks, a common practice in the port of Zeebrugge, has been made a criminal act has proved to be an additional deterrent, the minister believes. The number of break-ins in Zeebrugge dropped drastically, from 2,500 in 2018 to 250 last year, according to figures released by West Flanders Governor Carl Decaluwé.
Because of the new approach many migrants are believed to be by-passing Belgium and are heading straight for the French coast.