Migrant crisis: UK Coastguard orders small boats in British waters to contact French

Refugees who crossed the Channel in small boats during the tragedy on 24 November in the English Channel, when at least 27 people were killed, said both the French and British Coast Guards had received repeated distress calls. The UK had advised them to contact French rescue teams.

Chairwoman Harriet Harman had opened a session earlier this month saying parliament’s human rights committee was hearing evidence “in the shadow of tragedy”, adding: “At least 27 people died last Wednesday in the worst-recorded migrant tragedy in the Channel.

“Among the dead was 17 men, seven women and three children. Reports are that one of the women was pregnant, while one of the children was just a little girl.

“Many of the dead appear to have been Kurds from Iraq and Iran and some may have been Arabs and Afghans, as well as other Iranians. And I think we all – the minister, officials, ourselves – we all have those people in our thoughts.”

Ms Harman repeatedly asked for confirmation on whether those on the boat had called the UK authorities for help as it got into difficulty and, if so, what the response had been.

Daniel O’Mahoney, the Home Office’s Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, said there were “multiple migrant boats” in the water at the time and the coastguard responded to “every single one of them”.

He added: “I can’t tell you with any certainty whether we definitely received a call from that boat or not… if the people from that boat had called the UK authorities, I can tell you that we definitely responded to that call.”

Describing how the incident unfolded, he added: “The French authorities alerted us to the presence of that boat, which had been damaged and there were people in the water, at 1258.

“At which point it was well within French territorial waters in the French search and rescue zone. We responded immediately to that, the coastguard sent a helicopter, we made all of our… boats available.”

A group of refugees, interviewed by the Guardian on October 18 in Calais, said they had called the British Coast Guard, who advised that they call the French Coast Guard - who rescued them and brought them back to Calais a few hours.

Identical applications were made by several groups who tried to cross the Channel in small boats in recent months, the newspaper was told.

“The British told us to call the French without even asking our GPS position,” said one of the passengers on a boat attempting to cross the channel on 20 November.

“We called the French, they asked for our GPS position and said we were in UK waters. Nobody came to save us – neither the British nor the French. In the end, we called the French organisation Utopia56 and informed them of our whereabouts. They called the French emergency services, who came to rescue us and took us to Calais. “

On November 24, 2021, the Coast Guard received over 90 warnings from the English Channel area, including 999 emergency calls, a spokesman for the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency said. “Every call was answered, assessed and measures were taken. There are also no circumstances in which we would ask the caller to call the French authorities in our place, ”the spokesman added.