Some smugglers shift to Belgium from France to move migrants into Britain

BRUSSELS – Smugglers are increasingly using Belgium’s shoreline to transport migrants to Britain since tighter controls began along the French coast, the authorities said.

Though numbers remain comparatively small, there have been 17 such departures in 2026, compared with no more than two per year since 2021, Belgian police spokeswoman An Berger told Reuters.

Britain and France have both cracked down on small boats bringing thousands of migrants each year across the English Channel, for example introducing a “one in, one out” scheme.

“The shift to Belgian beaches is driven by a combination of factors, and the intensification of French coastal patrols is the most significant one from our perspective,” said EU border agency Frontex spokesman Chris Borowski.

Smugglers have been using so-called “taxi boats”, Mr Borowski said. A vessel departs from a quiet beach in Belgium with a small group, then travels along the coast to pick-up points before crossing to Britain.

Migrants pay about €2,000 (S$3,000) to smugglers, with no guarantee of boarding a boat, and sometimes face threats and abuse including sexual violence, the authorities said.

In March, volunteers pulled 19 people from a sinking dinghy during a night-time operation in the Belgian coastal municipality of De Haan, Ms Berger said, adding that only one had a life jacket.

More attempts are expected, with better weather coming.

“Every boat that departs is one too many,” said Belgian Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt in an e-mailed response to a Reuters request for comment.

The numbers from Belgium are still dwarfed by the France-Britain route, where about 41,500 people were detected crossing the Channel in small boats in 2025.

Some 2,200 people crossed in the first two months of 2026, according to data from the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory. REUTERS