Migrants vow to keep crossing Channel despite Priti Patel’s pledge to turn them back
MIGRANTS have vowed to keep trying to cross the Channel despite Home Secretary Priti Patel’s vow to turn them back.
Hundreds were gathered around the outskirts of Calais yesterday waiting to secure spots on boats through people smugglers.
When the Sun visited Iranian engineer Ahmed, 29, stopped us and showed us a news report on his mobile with the Priti Patel's new edict.
With wife Yalda, 26, standing next to him in tears he said: “Is this true? Are they really going to turn boats back?
“We have paid 2000 Euro each to get to Britain. What will happen now? If we are in trouble they have to rescue us. They can’t just leave us in the sea.
“We are going to try again maybe as soon as tonight. We are just waiting for someone to contact us.”
'Use a knife to make a hole in the boat'
Ahmed added: “I will just use a knife to make a hole in the boat and then they will have to save us and take us to Britain.”
Ahmed and hairdresser Yalda fled Tehran last December and spent the last six weeks camping rough near Calais hospital which has become a makeshift new “Jungle”.
Yalda said: “We couldn’t stay there. There were no opportunities. We want to work. We want to have a life. We are willing to work.”
Yesterday, migrants waiting revealed prices had tumbled in recent days as the weather was good and smugglers wanted to get as many over as possible.
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Yalda said: “We tried last week but the engine stopped working a few minutes after we left and we were rescued.
“We just get told to meet at a certain location at a certain time and someone met us with boat which we helped to inflate.”
Police have stepped up patrols along 200 miles of coast stretching from Dunkirk to Dieppe and banned the sale of boats from sports shops.
Petrol sales above ten litres in containers are also banned in a bid to stop crossings while marinas are being controlled to stop a spike in outboard motor thefts.
We are doing the best we can with what manpower we have available, our job is to prevent the Channel from becoming a graveyard.
Local French MP Pierre-Henri Dumont
Meanwhile local MP Pierre-Henri Dumont said migrants will not stop coming to Britain as they see it as their “El Dorado”.
Mr Dumont slammed Priti Patel’s plan of turning boats back mid-Channel as unworkable and against maritime law.
While hundreds of migrants in camps near Calais scoffed and insisted they would still be chancing their luck and dismissed the idea.
Mr Dumont said: "I don’t see how this policy can work. It is unworkable and we believe against maritime law.
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"I sympathise with the British taxpayers because they see themselves paying for a service and are not getting anything in return but this is a problem that will not go away overnight and it is something the British government has to address the causes as well and not just the consequences.
"We are doing the best we can with what manpower we have available, our job is to prevent the Channel from becoming a graveyard."
