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  "path": "/news/migrant-crisis-belgian-police-chief-naval-blockade",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-10T07:51:59.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "some operations to Belgium",
    "200,000 migrants making the journey since records began in 2018",
    "Donald Trump’s border Tsar tells GB News his blunt solution to Britain’s small boat crisis",
    "Nearly 1.5 million migrants on Universal Credit: 'Britain's the food bank of the world!'",
    "Two people arrested amid investigation into asylum seekers pretending to be gay to remain in Britain",
    "puncturing a migrant dinghy",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\nA senior Belgian police official has demanded the installation of a naval blockade to intercept migrant vessels before they can reach British shores.\n\nChristiaan De Ridder, Deputy Chief of West Flanders Police, made the call following a surge in small boat departures from Belgian coastal towns near the French border.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\"We have to stop them before they get to the UK. We have to find a way to stop them on the water,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"If we could put up a naval barrier so they don't get into French waters, everything would stop.\"\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nFrench authorities typically escort dinghies safely towards British waters rather than intercepting them, despite knowing these crossings are illegal and frequently orchestrated by criminal networks.\n\nThis policy has sparked growing anger in Britain, particularly as the UK Government has committed £660million over three years to France to help reduce crossings.\n\nPeople-smuggling networks have reportedly relocated some operations to Belgium to circumvent promised increases in French patrols.\n\nMigrants departing from Belgian beaches are sometimes collected alongside others from isolated stretches of coastline around Dunkirk and Calais.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nSince January, Belgian authorities have detained forty suspected traffickers and more than 360 migrants, with approximately 30 small boat crossings recorded this year.\n\nSuch arrest figures are virtually unprecedented across the border in France.\n\nThe number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel reached a shocking milestone just days ago, with over 200,000 migrants making the journey since records began in 2018.\n\nImages captured at Gravelines beach near Dunkirk showed migrants boarding a vessel with no French officers visible, despite assurances of enhanced patrols in the area.\n\n### LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:\n\n\n\n\n  * Donald Trump’s border Tsar tells GB News his blunt solution to Britain’s small boat crisis\n  * Nearly 1.5 million migrants on Universal Credit: 'Britain's the food bank of the world!'\n  * Two people arrested amid investigation into asylum seekers pretending to be gay to remain in Britain\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nDirect intervention by French police remains exceptionally uncommon.\n\nWhen officers did take decisive action last week by puncturing a migrant dinghy on a beach near Calais, they were subsequently reported to a human rights watchdog.\n\nIn the Belgian resort of Middlekerke, roughly an hour's drive from Calais, migrants have been observed rushing through streets towards the beach to board waiting boats.\n\nThe Mayor of Dunkirk, Jean Marie Emmery, dismissed the Belgian approach as unnecessary.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nSpeaking on Radio 4's Today programme, he argued legislative reform was the only viable solution.\n\n\"We don't need that,\" he said. \"We need a change of the law.\n\n\"We need a change in Great Britain and in Europe and in Belgium and then it will stop.\"\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n**\n**\n\n**\n**\n\n**Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter**",
  "title": "Police chief demands 'naval blockade' in bid to stop small boat migrants surge from Belgium"
}