schema:articleBody
| - French authorities Wednesday took charge of dozens of migrants stranded on a beach in northern France after a failed bid to cross the Channel to Britain, police said. The group -- made up of 31 men, 10 women and 22 children -- was found on a beach at Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais region. The 63-strong group had set off in a boat on Tuesday night, encouraged by the good weather conditions. "These people were rapidly taken into charge by the firefighters. As their condition was not cause for alarm, they were not transferred to the Calais hospital," the police said, adding that 55 of them were given shelter in the region. The same day 53 other people were rescued as they tried to sail across the Channel to England in a series of unsafe vessels, maritime authorities in northwestern France said. They were all brought ashore and put in the care of border police, they added. Nearly 1,500 migrants and asylum seekers arrived in Britain from France by small boats in August, according to an analysis by the British Press Association news agency. August's tally of arrivals is believed to be a record for a single month and is almost as much as the numbers in June and July combined. The numbers have increased political tensions between London and Paris, with Britain's right-wing Conservative government publicly pressuring France to do more to stem the flow of migrant crossings. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said Tuesday the spike in crossings was "unacceptable" and blamed criminal gangs for exploiting the desperate and vulnerable for money. French authorities insist they are doing all they can, and last month the mayor of the port city of Calais told Johnson he should "calm down". bj/lc/pvh
|