Britons learned today from news sources around the country that more migrants landed in Great Britain by crossing the English Channel, usually in rafts and small boats, during 2019, than in any previous year on record. In fact, the news media now says the estimates is that the number increased by six times the amount from 2018.
According to British media reports, more than nineteen-hundred migrants arrived on rafts and small vessels that braved the English Channel during 2019. The English Channel is known as one of the stormiest passages in European waters. Some news media are speculating that fully half of those who attempted the crossing from Spain, Germany, and France, perished in their attempt. The British Royal Navy has not responded to questions about how many vessels adrift in the English Channel they have rescued and turned back or interned during 2019. Although the number is alarming to Britons, it’s only a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to countries like Spain and Italy — that number reached over one hundred thousand in 2019, according to a United Nations report. And that number, in turn, is down from nearly a million crossings in 2016.