The UK\u00a0sanctioned Balkans-based gangs and financiers who it said facilitated small boat crossings across the English Channel.<\/p>\n
The UK\u00a0Foreign Office said the sanctions, which include asset freezes and travel bans, targeted criminal gangs\u00a0involved in “illegal migration to the UK.”<\/p>\n
The sanctions came as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted European leaders at a Western Balkans summit to discuss migration and economy.<\/p>\n
Starmer under pressure to tackle irregular migration<\/p>\n
Starmer has made repeated promises to “smash the gangs” ferrying people across the English Channel.<\/p>\n
More than 35,000 people have crossed the Channel this year. By the end of the year, that figure may surpass the record of\u00a0about 45,774\u00a0known crossings in 2022.<\/p>\n
Data collection on Channel crossings began in 2018. There are many others who arrive on a visa in the UK and then put in an asylum claim.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0the figure on Channel crossings has steadily increased over the years and the situation is now seen as an issue emblematic of wider anxiety that the asylum system is not working.<\/p>\n
Crossing the Channel on small boats is a dangerous journey that has cost many lives, with many having died while attempting to cross the Channel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There’s also pressure on Starmer to stymie the rise of\u00a0Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigration\u00a0Reform\u00a0UK party.<\/p>\n
What Starmer said about punishing criminal gangs<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s a criminal route through the Western Balkans bringing illegal migrants to the UK, and we\u2019re determined to shut it down by working with European partners,”\u00a0 Starmer said at the summit.<\/p>\n
Starmer’s center-left\u00a0government imposed sanctions on members of what it described as a Kosovo-based “organised crime group responsible for producing false documents and supplying them to criminal gangs.”<\/p>\n
It also sanctioned a man it said was the leader of a Croatian gang supplying false Croatian passports to Balkan gangs.<\/p>\n
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u00a0sanctioned Balkans-based gangs and financiers who it said facilitated small boat crossings across the English Channel. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-520785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115420437365874512","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}