CHERBOURG, France — When rescuers reached the wreckage of a boat on the rocks near Omonville-la-Rogue — about 25 kilometres west of this port city on the Normandy coast — it was empty, save for a pack of water and two fuel cans.
Days later, two men — one Lithuanian, one Belarusian — were arrested, accused of trying to smuggle a dozen migrants across the English Channel aboard that same vessel, around seven metres in length and unsafe for open water. The pilot was a young Afghan. Passengers paid €3,000 each for the chance to reach the UK, according to local reports.
Between that section of coast and nearby Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, runs the Alderney Race, one of the strongest currents in European seas.
“It makes the crossing extremely difficult and much more dangerous than in the north of France,” Jean-Francois, who works at the watersports centre in Omonville-la-Rogue, told The Parliament. The boat, he says, likely left from somewhere near Cherbourg before being swept up by a current and crashing onto the rocks.
The case, from May this year, shows how migrants are still attempting dangerous crossings from launch points beyond the traditional Calais route, despite the construction in 2022 of a four-metre-tall steel fence around the port of Cherbourg, paid for by the UK.
In a forest outside the city, a small group of Afghan migrants has made camp. Their camp, reached by a makeshift path of rickety wooden slats, is made up of large military-style tents donated by local organisations, volunteers and the town hall. Inside, the ground is covered by decking.
Chickens and a goat graze nearby, donated by a local volunteer to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Solar panels are installed to power a lightbulb in each tent. Crates with a throw over them make three sofas, of sorts. A kettle filled with tea simmers on a fire.
“I left Afghanistan because there are Taliban there,” says Mujeeb, who is 23 years old. He tells The Parliament that he has been in Cherbourg for 10 years, after his family paid a smuggler €14,000 to bring him to Europe. “They can’t live in peace there. There is nothing.”
Mujeeb says he now wants to settle in France and eventually bring his family over. But most migrants camped on the shores of the English Channel hope one day to make the crossing to the UK; some make several attempts before finally succeeding — or perishing.
The UK “is a kind of ‘El Dorado’ dream that is maintained by the migrants themselves,” Claudie Rault-Verprey, part of the Cherbourg-based aid organisation Itinerance, which does work at the camp, told The Parliament. “History and experience prove that when people really want to pass, they will pass.”
According to the UK-based Migration Observatory, citizens of six countries — Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Syria, and Eritrea — made up 70% of people crossing to the UK in small boats between 2018 and 2024. Many of them are seeking to join large diaspora communities in the UK.
There are numerous ideas about why migrants are willing to attempt such dangerous crossings to reach the UK, rather than staying in France. The UK is no longer part of the EU’s Dublin system, which allows asylum seekers to be returned to their country of first arrival — meaning that if they reach the UK, they’re likely to be able to stay. Migrants also cite the UK’s relatively liberal labour market regulations and the lack of ID cards as a draw.
And there’s a push as well as a pull. “They [migrants] do not find any solutions in what France and some European countries are offering today,” said Laura Poignet, who works at the Calais branch of Utopia 56, a French aid organisation helping displaced and homeless people.
Migration routes moving west
Aid organisations say that across the La Manche region as a whole, in north-west France, illegal crossings are on the rise as police crack down on traditional launch points like Calais with tactics like slashing inflatable boats, while employing kit such as drones and thermal cameras.
Calais is just 32 kilometres away from Dover at the Channel’s narrowest point; in purely geographical terms, it’s the easiest route to the UK. Further west, the distances grow significantly: 124 kilometres from Dieppe to Newhaven, and 163 kilometres from Cherbourg to Portsmouth. Longer routes mean more time at sea and greater danger for those making the journey in small, often unsafe boats.
“What we have clearly seen over the last few years with this repression, this militarisation in the north and Pas-de-Calais [region], is that people keep trying to cross and just take more and more risks to continue to pass,” said Poignet.
“As the crossing time increases, it increases the risks of capsizing, the risk of engine failure, of lack of fuel, because you need a lot of gas to do so many kilometres … [plus] risks of hypothermia, especially in winter,” she explained. “Not to mention, the more time you spend in this extremely dense maritime traffic that is the Channel, the more you increase the risk of collision.”
There has been a steady increase in migrant boats leaving from areas such as Boulogne-sur-Mer and Dieppe in recent years, France’s Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and North Sea said in its annual report for 2024, while the average number of people per boat rose to 54 last year, up from 45 in 2023.
In late July, a Somali man died of cardiac arrest near Boulogne-sur-Mer, about 30 kilomtres from Calais, Le Monde reported at the time. The victim had been exposed for a long time to a mix of fuel and seawater inside the boat he was on, according to the courts.
In January, French authorities intercepted 46 migrants, including a pregnant woman, on a beach near Dieppe — nearly 200 kilometres west of Calais — as they prepared to cross the Channel in a makeshift boat. Four suspected traffickers were arrested.
As the authorities crack down, migrants move elsewhere. There were only about 10 Afghan men at the camp outside Cherbourg when The Parliament visited last week — down from about 80 last year, according to volunteers.
Last leg of a dangerous journey
Migrants from Afghanistan aren’t only hoping to make a better life for themselves: They’re often carrying the expectations of their whole extended families.
“The trip is financed by a family or by a village or even by an entire region and therefore it is a question of honour afterwards. They can't stop along the way. They must go all the way to the end of their migration project, no matter how dangerous it may be,” said Rault-Verpret. “There is a kind of debt of honour to the people who paid the smuggler.”
By the time they arrive in northern France, they have already survived many dangers. They must first pass through Iran, where they’re at risk of being driven back or even arrested and accused of spying. Next is an arduous hike across the mountains to Turkey, and then across to Greece by boat.
Those who make it all the way to northern France have several options to reach the UK. While small boats dominate the headlines, many migrants attempt to hide in lorries — a method that brings dangers of its own.
In January, Cherbourg's border police (PAF) discovered sixteen migrants, among them a pregnant woman and some children, in a refrigerated trailer parked in the port of Cherbourg. The migrants themselves had called the authorities after becoming trapped in the trailer, where they risked freezing to death. Contacted by The Parliament, the police force described this incident as a “one-off event.”
The response from French and UK authorities has largely focused on deterrence. Last month, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a migration deal operating on the principle of ‘one in, one out’, whereby the UK will be able to return asylum seekers to France "in short order" in exchange for accepting other migrants who have not made an illegal attempt to enter the UK.
“A drone is used to monitor the port area and prevent illegal attempts to board ferries,” Captain Pierre Hamon, a department manager within the PAF, told The Parliament. “This aerial surveillance makes it possible to locate migrants hidden in places that are difficult to access.”
Yet critics argue that without safer legal pathways, migrants who have already risked so much to reach France will continue to attempt the final leg of their journey to the UK, regardless of the dangers.
“As long as we [in France] don't offer them security, a dignified welcome, or even a future, they will try to cross and take risks to seek better living conditions,” said Poignet.
This story has been updated to include comments from Cherbourg’s border police.
Sign up to The Parliament's weekly newsletter
Every Friday our editorial team goes behind the headlines to offer insight and analysis on the key stories driving the EU agenda. Subscribe for free here.