They are notably young, many just teenagers. They tend to stick together and avoid the attention of the aid workers off ering food and water down at the beach or in the forests where they sleep at night.
They appear nervous, under pressure, but such is their smart dress that charity volunteers say they could be mistaken for tourists. They seem to have money, too.
“When the police block them from getting on the boats, we have had some people from Vietnam ask how to get a taxi back to where they are staying,” said Sophie Roux, 32, a volunteer with the charity Osmose 62 . “We say it might be €200 (£170) and they say it isn’t a problem.”
A new group of about 200 people from Vietnam, about half of them women, had arrived in the area on Monday, of which scores had hoped to be on a dinghy going across the Channel at first light the next day.
Their handlers had to turn them back round at the beach in the immediate wake of the latest horror on the coast when five people, including a girl aged six and a half said to be from Iraq or Kuwait, die near Wimereux , a quiet town 20 miles south of Calais. They would try again when the weather cleared, they said.
This week, when trailing his intention to plough on with his policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, Rishi Sunak mentioned the Vietnamese.
The trafficking gangs had “shifted their attentions towards vulnerable Vietnamese migrants”, the prime minister said. “Vietnamese arrivals have increased ten fold,” and they “ account for almost all of the increase in small boat numbers we have seen this year ”.
This story is from the April 27, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 27, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
‘We demand a decision now’ Everton shareholders call for an end to 777’s takeover farce’
Everton shareholders have urged the club’s owner, Farhad Moshiri, and the Premier League to end the farce” of a proposed takeover by 777 Partners after the troubled company was accused of fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ancelotti to spur on Madrid in search of revenge
Carlo Ancelotti said he was on the \"good side\" of European football's grandest rivalry and, on the eve of the Champions League semi-final second leg between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, revealed the Bavarian club did not support him when he was coach.
Ten Hag exit may be inevitable but when will the cycle stop?
Change is surely coming with Manchester United playing so badly, so often, but this is a club trapped in constant transition, writes
'I contemplated what my life would be without tennis'
Jack Draper on his coaching experiment, his long climb up the rankings and why he considered quitting the sport
US regulator investigates Boeing over quality tests on 787 planes
Boeing faces a new investigation after the planemaker told US regulators it might have failed to carry out some quality inspections properly on its 787 Dreamliner planes.
Disney plans to scale back Marvel films to 'focus more on quality'
Disney said yesterday it planned to release fewer movies and \"focus more on quality\" in its key franchises after a string of high-profile flops at the box office.
P&O Ferries boss asked if he is modern pirate’ for paying crew 4.87 an hour
The boss of P&O Ferries has been asked if he is \"a pirate\" who appears to be \"robbing staff blind\" - as he confirmed to MPs that the group's seafarers have been paid rates lower than he previously told parliament.
Woman pleads not guilty to mushroom poisonings
Erin Patterson, a woman accused of murdering and attempting to murder her relatives by serving them a meal laced with deadly mushrooms, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Venezuela is first country to lose all of its glaciers in modern era
Venezuela has lost its last remaining glacier as it shrunk so much that scientists reclassified it as an ice patch.
Death toll hits 90 in southern Brazil's worst climate disaster
The death toll from what authorities are calling the worst climate disaster ever to strike southern Brazil has risen to 90, after ferocious rain flooded huge stretches of Rio Grande do Sul state, displacing more than 155,000 people.