LONDON: Migrants arriving in Britain via the English Channel have been held on a double-decker bus as the UK struggles to manage record levels of arrivals.
The Dover Independent Monitoring Board said the surge in numbers of migrants has been so great that the overstretched Border Force had to accommodate migrants in “manifestly unsuitable” tents and portacabins on a nearby car park.
The facilities, the IMB said, were not suitable for children or the vulnerable and put peoples’ welfare at risk. At one point the facilities became so overwhelmed that some individuals were even held on a double-decker bus parked on site.
While the area was originally established purely as a processing facility, the record-breaking number of arrivals this year means that people have often been forced to spend the night there, sleeping on the floor without mats.
Many unaccompanied children and families, the IMB added, were forced to spend the night in small spaces with adults that they did not know. Food was insufficient, and in some cases, age assessment failings saw children moved to immigration removal centers rather than being taken into care by councils.
More than 17,000 people have made the perilous crossing across the English Channel to reach the UK so far this year — more than double the 8,410 people that made the journey in the whole of 2020.
William Baker, Dover IMB chairman, said: “The board has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of people held in unsuitable conditions where adults and children may be held for over 24 hours.
“Migrants are initially held in an overstretched facility at the docks, with unsatisfactory arrangements for food, sleeping or washing. They are then transferred to other locations, which can include holding rooms in Dover and Folkestone which are also not designed to cope with these numbers. It is clear that more and better provision is urgently needed.”
He continued: “Given how long the situation with small boat arrivals has continued, it is surprising that the Home Office still has such inadequate facilities for properly managing the care of children, that elderly and vulnerable people have been sleeping on mats on the floor, that medical support has not been expanded, and that there are still no proper washing facilities at the overflow room in Folkestone.
“The board has observed some small improvements over the summer, but they have not gone far enough to address these challenges.”
The increase in the number of arrivals in Britain over the past year has also become a bone of contention between the UK and France, with London urging Paris to do more to prevent individuals from attempting the crossing.
Britain has deployed aircraft and naval vessels to track small boats making the journey, but there are few concrete actions it can legally take to prevent people from arriving in the country via the Channel.
