British border guards on Sunday detained four boats in the English Channel with 39 migrants trying to get to the shores of the United Kingdom, the British publication Evening Standard reports citing a representative of the Department of the Interior.
According to the newspaper, the first boat was detained at about 4.40 local time (7.40 Moscow time), there were nine people in it. The second boat with five more migrants was detained at 6 am local time (9 am Moscow time). In the third boat there were 11 people, in the fourth – 14, they were stopped from 7.00 to 7.30 local time (10-10.30 Moscow time).
As the representative of the British Interior Ministry noted, all the detainees introduced themselves as immigrants from Iran. According to her, the migrants will undergo a medical examination, after which they will be handed over to the migration service in Dover.
Illegal migrants often look for any opportunity to cross the English Channel and find themselves in the UK, where they are attracted by a social program, the possibility of obtaining refugee status and financial benefits.
According to the Daily Mail, about 1.5 thousand asylum seekers have arrived in Britain since January, a significant number of these people risked their lives to get to the United Kingdom. The British Interior Ministry spends millions of pounds to counter illegal migration.