LONDON: French police have been filmed by British film crews slashing inflatable small boats used by migrants to cross the English Channel, with some officers pepper-spraying migrants as they attempted to leave the northern French coast.
The group of migrants, which included Iraqi Kurds and Albanians, were attempting to launch a dinghy from a beach in Dunkirk when a camera from Channel 4 News captured policemen slashing their boat.
The migrants had to give up their efforts due to the damage to the boat, with some officers deploying pepper spray on them.
The cameras captured the group, composed mostly of men, rapidly sprinting across the beach in the morning carrying the black dinghy.
Most of them wore life vests, but some did not, despite the many fatalities that have occurred on the perilous trip.
Officers from the French police stopped the group of men in their tracks as they ran for the water.
“So, we’ve got about 40 or 50 people,” said Channel 4 News reporter Paraic O’Brien as his team’s cameras captured the events unfolding.
“The police buggy has just turned up to try and stop them,” he added, narrating as the police intervened.
Four French border patrol officers were filmed jumping from their buggy onto the sand, blocking the migrants carrying the dinghy.
In the footage, one of the officers slashes the small boat, causing a loud popping sound as the blade breaks the inflatable rib, causing rapid deflation.
One of the migrants carrying the boat tries to prevent the police officer from slashing the boat, and is subjected to pepper spray from point-blank range, forcing him to run away.
The group of migrants then fled the scene.
“A large group of migrants were confronted by three French police officers. We were told that (a) drone, funded by the UK, had first detected the group,” O’Brien said after the incident.
“After police slashed the dinghy with a knife, one of the migrants tried to prevent them from cutting it again — that’s when the pepper spray came out.”
More than 23,000 people have crossed the English Channel this year, with August becoming the busiest month since records began in 2018, with 6,887 making the journey so far this month.
Despite the perilous conditions and interventions by the French police, some 400 migrants made the 21-mile journey across the strait on Thursday.
French police are reportedly struggling to handle the “flash-mob manner” of migrants who suddenly rush to the water, the Daily Mail reported, adding that the groups sometimes appear in their hundreds, overwhelming the authorities.
The newspaper said that the current record-breaking numbers were likely due to the French police taking their summer holidays, allowing more opportunities for migrants to push for the water and avoid detection, adding that weather conditions had cleared in recent weeks, allowing smuggling gangs to cater to thousands of waiting customers.
