ITV News Reporter Sam Holder speaks to Belgian police about a shift in the way people smugglers on the continent are operating
Police in Belgium say small boat crossing attempts to the UK have risen sharply in recent months, with activity spreading along much of the country’s coastline.
Last year, there were just two attempted small boat crossings carrying migrants to Britain. But between January and April this year, there have already been 32.
Only five have been stopped before they made it to the water.
In the summer, when the weather is more favourable for crossing the Channel, the number of attempts is expected to rise significantly.
But why is this happening?
The people smugglers have started coming over the border from France, where the majority of crossings still take place, in response to the French police in Calais and Dunkirk taking a tougher stance in recent months.
Deputy police chief Christian De Ridder said there has been an ‘exponential’ rise of crossings from the west coast on Belgium. Credit: ITV News
“Since the beginning of this year, there’s a lot more police presence in France and there’s a lot more checks,” An Berger, from Belgium’s Federal Police, told ITV News.
“The smuggling organisations try to find other ways – the path of least resistance.”
The smugglers transport the migrants from places like Dunkirk to places along the Belgian coast in cars and vans – occasionally they tell the migrants to book an Uber – where they hide until a second vehicle delivers a packaged boat, which then needs to be inflated.
Until recently, the smugglers and migrants had been using abandoned World War Two bunkers as hiding places, which provided shelter from both the elements and the infrared cameras used by police helicopters and drones.
In response, the Belgian authorities have now sealed all the previously open bunkers.
Once inflated, the boats are often carried by the migrants through the middle of coastal towns, on roads with blocks of flats on either side, like in Koksijde.
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“There was somebody living in an apartment who was woken up because they were carrying the boat and they hit a traffic sign, which made a lot of noise,” Christian De Ridder, deputy chief of the West Coast Police Force, told ITV News.
“He looked down and saw these guys carrying the boat over to the sea.”
De Ridder says the crossings are “a very important issue” for Belgium, not just out of concern for preventing people smuggling but also for the impact it could have on tourism.
The police in Belgium use helicopters to scan the beaches and have teams that try to intercept boats before they reach the water, but they say that is the last line of defence.
Much of the focus is on preventing the smugglers from getting into Belgium from France, with “intelligence-led” checks on vehicles suspected of carrying migrants on cross-border roads and searches for any equipment which could be used to build or inflate a small boat.
Still, there have been 27 occasions in four months that smugglers have successfully reached the shoreline without being stopped.
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Once in the water, the Belgian naval police refuse to attempt to intercept the boats because they say they are concerned it could lead to migrants on board drowning.
The route the smugglers and migrants take is to follow the Belgian coast to France and then to cross the Channel at a similar point to if they had departed from Dunkirk.
A recent attempt from Knokke, near the border with the Netherlands, meant the migrants had to travel an additional 45 miles at sea before they even attempted to cross the Channel – even more danger on an already perilous journey.
The Belgian authorities insist that stopping the departures is a priority and that they do not want their coastal towns to end up like Calais and Dunkirk.
The reality is that they don’t appear to have enough police officers to adequately prevent crossings over such a long stretch of coast.
Their hope is that their “intelligence-led” operations on the border will make up the shortfall.
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