Migrant boat forces Dunkirk commemoration fleet to divert route
21 May 2025, 20:38 | Updated: 21 May 2025, 20:47
A flotilla of "Little Ships" were forced to divert their Dunkirk commemorations in the English Channel so the Border Force could escort a migrant boat.
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The fleet of 66 boats sailed from Ramsgate, Kent on Wednesday to mark the 85th anniversary of Dunkirk.
The anniversary tribute for Operation Dynamo, or Dunkirk, was meant to be a "poignant tribute to the bravery and sacrifice" of the 1000 British pleasure boats where used to rescue around 300,000 Allied soldiers from the Nazi invasion of France.
However, the commemorative sail was forced to divert when Border Force and the French navy demanded they provide a one-nautical mile exclusion zone for a migrant boat.
Marine traffic audio revealed that the ships were told: “There is a [French] warship on our head with a migrant [boat] close by. And we’ve been requested to give one nautical mile distance from that vessel, over.”
This comes as two migrants died trying to cross the English Channel overnight, the French coastguard said.
A rescue operation was launched after the pair became unconscious on a boat carrying nearly 80 migrants, which left the shore from Gravelines, northern France, the coastguard reported on Wednesday.
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One observer told The Telegraph: “They have asked the British ships to get out of the way. It is one of the most important days in history and they are shoving them out of the way.”
The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS), which organised the flotilla, said it would ensure “the legacy of the Dunkirk little ships continues to inspire future generations”.
Escorted by the Royal Navy and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), Wednesday's voyage was the first time the little ships have made the crossing since 2015.
Chris Bannister, who owns a boat that served as a tug during the Dunkirk evacuation, told the newspaper: "If we don’t carry out the commemoration like we are today, then the people who have sacrificed their lives many years ago, the memory of them, will stop."
The "Little Ships" used in the evacuation were volunteered or requisitioned by the Government to be used in the Dunkirk evacuations.
Allied soldiers from Britain, France, Belgium, Poland and the Netherlands were evacuated across the English Channel.
Operation Dynamo prompted Winston Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches” speech in the House of Commons after the operation was deemed completed in June 1940.
Overnight a French Navy boat set out to make contact with the boat to recover the two people and 10 others who needed help.
First responders from the vessel performed first aid on the two people, but a medical team later confirmed their deaths.
All those rescued were taken to Calais, while the remaining migrants on the boat continued their journey towards British waters under French Navy surveillance.
Pictures show migrants wrapped in blankets disembarking from a Border Force boat in Dover, Kent, on Wednesday morning.
Others were also brought to shore in an RNLI lifeboat.
Latest Home Office figures show 49 people in one boat arrived in the UK on Tuesday, bringing the provisional total of arrivals for the year so far to 12,748.
This is up 29% on the number recorded at this point last year (9,874) and 75% higher than the same point in 2023 (7,297), according to analysis of the data by the PA news agency.
It is also a record number for this point in the calendar year since data was first collected in 2018.
The Home Office have been approached for comment.
