Refugees are risking their lives trying to get to Britain by crossing the channel in small boats. While this is raising fears of a similar situation to that in the Mediterranean where thousands have died. It's starting to become a very similar situation to that seen in the Mediterranean. My biggest fear is that the same kind of tragedies we see in Greece or Italy will start to repeat in the channel. And this is a migrant camp near the French port city Dieppe, is home to a hundred and fifty migrants at the moment，desperate to reach the UK. Every everywhere，every position，every situation，we can go we go. In France, there is no chance for me to get paid，or to work here. So that's why I come to stay here，trying to get to England. Well, the channel is around 50 kilometers wide at its narrowest point. You can see here between Calais and Dover. It's one of the busy shipping routes too in the world. Thousands of migrants have been living near the French port of Calais，trying get into the UK, but security has been stepped up and many are forced to seek other routes. And this is one of the boat used by the migrants in their bid to enter the UK. Smugglers demand up to 10,000 pounds for the crossing. It is reported that around 50 migrants a week crossing the channel this way. Concerns are now being raised that this number will actually increase too. Polly Boiko met some of the volunteers monitoring the coastline.
David and fellow coast watches Bob and Jackie a part of a team that monitors what's happening in the waters of the English Channel. We will always pass on to UK border force any observation that we regard as suspicious. There are more than 2,000 volunteers just like them，watching from 51 specially equipped stations around the UK coast. Last month，18 illegal immigrants from Albania were rescued from a dinghy of the Kent coast. It sparked concerns that the UK's coastline is vulnerable to smugglers,looking for new ways to get people into the country. The UK's National Crime Agency has warned that because security has been stepped up in major ports around the country. Human traffickers are now targeting smaller ones like this one in Newhaven. That's the ferry that comes in daily from Dieppe in France. There's no visible border security checking the trucks as they offload. In fact at the moment, Britain's Border Force has just three cutters patrolling over 7,000 miles of coastline. If you compare it to France who have 40 cutters that show you who's investing in what. I think we're very exposed I think we need to reinvest in our border security. I want to know if the locals in Newhaven especially those with sealegs think that the British coast needs more protection. They don't have enough facilities. Now that's why I think supposedly I am going to bring the Navy into sort of do some more patrolling. The government says its buying an unspecified number of boats to complement the work of the patrol vessels already in the water. And is setting up maritime coordination hubs to make sure people，drugs and weapons aren't smuggled into the UK. In the meantime in Newhaven up in this Tower，volunteer David is still holding the fort.