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

BRUSSELS, April 8 - Smugglers are increasingly using Belgium's shoreline to transport migrants to Britain since tighter controls began along the French coast, authorities say.

Though numbers remain comparatively small, there have been 17 such departures this year, compared with no more than two per year since 2021, police spokesperson 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 spokesperson Chris Borowski.

Smugglers have been using so-called "taxi boats," 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 the UK.

Migrants pay about 2,000 euros ($2,300) to smugglers, with no guarantee of boarding a boat and sometimes face threats and abuse including sexual violence, authorities say.

Last month, volunteers pulled 19 people from a sinking dinghy during a night-time operation in the Belgian coastal municipality of De Haan, Berger said, adding 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 emailed 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 last year.

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