Police in West Flanders have 31 migrants on that were hoping to cross the Channel and enter the UK illegally sleeping in a nature reserve in De Panne. The nature reserve where the migrants were found is near to the French border. The police assume that they were waiting to be take to a boat to make the crossing to the UK. Later in the evening the Maritime Police intercepted 2 boats. The first had 12 people aboard, the second 46.
Police find 31 transmigrants sleeping at a nature reserve near to the French border
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The boats that were intercepted were so-called “taxi boats”. These take migrants from pick up points along the West Flemish coast and take them a few dozen kilometres along the coast tot he French town of Calais where the distance to the UK is only just over 30km.
VRT News’ Roel Nollet says that the local and federal police services and the officials from the Aliens’ Office spent the whole night trying to catch the people smugglers that had arranged the migrants’ passage.
A busy night
Christiaan De Ridder of the Westkust Local Police Service told VRT News that
“We had another busy night, due to the fine weather”.
Most of the migrants were intercepted in De Panne. “We found a number of migrants the dunes. After spotting a suspicious vehicle heading in that direction, we dispatched a drone.”
“Using thermal imaging, we initially found 8 or 9 migrants at the nature reserve near the French border. A few hundred metres further, we came across another large group of migrants. They were waiting in sleeping bags, presumably to be picked up by boat.”
A total of 31 migrants were intercepted last night. One ‘runner’ was also apprehended.
“We are now investigating how they ended up in the dunes. We suspect that these people came through the nature reserve on foot.”
2 boats
2 boats were also spotted on Thursday night. “A Maritime Police vessel spotted a boat off the harbour channel in Nieuwpoort at 4.50 am. A second boat was then spotted off Westende. We suspect that the boats entered the sea at Westende or further east.” The police escorted them towards French waters.
A large taxi boat like that can hold 80 to 100 people. “There were only 12 people in the first one. That leads us to suspect that the migrants were waiting for that boat in their sleeping bags in the dunes at De Panne. We have seen in the past that they wade into the water up to their waists to then climb aboard a boat. The second boat already had 46 people on board.”