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Posted: Nov 28, 2021/03:18 CST
Updated: 11/28/2021 / 3:18 AM CST
CALAIS, France (AP) – Top European migration officials hold an emergency meeting in the French port of Calais on Sunday to find ways to better tackle the smuggling of migrants after 27 people attempted to cross the Channel to Britain in an overcrowded rubber dinghy to cross, died.
British officials will be particularly absent at the meeting at Calais Town Hall after the sinking sparked a new political crisis between Britain and France on Wednesday. The neighbors accuse each other of not doing enough to deter people from the treacherous journey.
France is conducting a national organized crime investigation into sinking, the deadliest migratory accident on the Canal in history. Iraqi Kurds and at least one Somali were also on board, but most of them have not yet been publicly identified.
In Calais, government ministers from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France meet officials from the European Union and the EU border agency Frontex and the police authority Europol.
They focus on smuggling networks, which charge between 3,000 and 7,000 euros for the journey across the English Channel. France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said a car with German license plates had been confiscated in connection with the investigation.
Aid organizations advocate a more humane, coordinated asylum policy instead of just more police. In camps along the French coast, people from Sudan and Kurds from Iran and Iraq crowd under the cold rain and wait for their chance to cross the English Channel. They won’t be deterred by Wednesday’s deaths or increased beach patrols.
The number of migrants attempting to cross the canal in small boats has skyrocketed this year amid pandemic travel restrictions and post-Brexit. Overall, however, the number of migrants arriving in Great Britain is low compared to other European countries.
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https://www.kxan.com/news/international/european-migration-officials-meet-after-deaths-in-channel/
