MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2019) French coast guards rescued 31 migrants trying to cross the English Channel near the coast of the French Pas-de-Calais department, media reported on Sunday.
According to the France Info news portal, the Regional Operational Center for Monitoring and Rescue (CROSS) carried out an operation to rescue migrants on Saturday night when those were trying to reach the shores of the United Kingdom.
The coast guards picked up 11 migrants, including two young children, in the early hours of Sunday after the engine of one small boat started to fail.
The second alarm signal was received four hours later. Twenty people, including a pregnant woman aboard a sinking vessel, were rescued.
"[The English Channel is] one of the busiest areas in the world where weather conditions are often unfavorable ... and therefore [it] poses a danger to life," the media outlet quoted the commander of the English Channel and the North Sea as saying.
Since 2015, Europe has been experiencing its worst migration crisis in recent history, struggling to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing hostilities in middle Eastern and North African countries. However, over recent years the flow of migrants has been steadily going down due to various factors, including the winding down of the war in Syria and a number of European countries embracing stricter border security and immigration policies.
