Desperate mothers throw babies at lifeboat crew during English Channel rescues

'Constant exposure' to such distress affects rescuers, leaving them in need of additional trauma support

Desperate mothers throw their babies at rescuers as they try to cross the English Channel in search of asylum and a new life.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has published footage, caught on the helmet cameras of rescue team members, of a recent call out to intercept five migrants off the southern coast of England.

Among them was a 14-year-old girl believed to be from Afghanistan, the charity said.

More than 37,000 people have arrived in England via the Channel route so far this year, provisional UK government data indicate.

The RNLI said its crew members were subjected to such extensive exposure to the screams and pain of people rescued that they needed more trauma support.

Simon Ling, head of lifeboats, said the missions are “far from straightforward”.

“These are very flimsy, poorly constructed rubber dinghies carrying men, women and children in very difficult conditions, transiting one of the busiest shipping channels in the world,” he said.

“The first thing our crews encounter when they're tasked is levels of distress. We often see women and children huddling in the middle of the boats, men sitting on side, very little space between the top of the dinghy and the water, so there's an omnipresent risk of the boat being compromised, putting everybody in the water.

“It's very chaotic with screaming and panic, mothers holding up babies and, in some cases, throwing the babies at our lifeboat crew to catch, such is the level of distress.

“So it's a very complex situation for our coxswains on our crews to navigate, to try to calm the situation down, not make the situation worse and rescue as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

Police on Wednesday arrested an Albanian woman suspected of helping to transport migrants across the Channel in small boats.

The 31-year-old was arrested on suspicion of enabling illegal immigration and has been taken into custody for questioning, the National Crime Agency reported.

Government figures show 502 migrants arrived in the UK on 12 boats after crossing the Channel on Tuesday, taking the provisional total for the year so far to 37,570.

Research also shows that each rescue is more likely to involve a higher number of migrants traversing the water separating England and France.

The “constant exposure” to such distress affects the rescuers, who are given trauma support but sometimes decide they “no longer want to volunteer”, Mr Ling said.

The charity has an attrition rate — the rate at which workers leave an organisation — of between 5 and 10 per cent, Mr Ling said.

“Volunteering is very difficult, that's across all of the RNLI,” he said. “But we do recruit new volunteers. We have recruited new volunteers. Our job is then to quickly train them and equip them to do the life-saving job that they undertake.”

An RNLI crew member said they are trained on what to do when they discover “bodies floating face down in the water”.

“Our greatest terror is not if but when,” he said.

Dinghies, which are often unseaworthy, are packed with people and the bottom of the boats are usually “swilling with a mixture of seawater, petrol and vomit”, he said.

“There is an unspoken fear among crew that a dinghy will split apart as people rush and clamber over its sides … getting them on board is rarely pretty … it feels overwhelmingly chaotic.”

He spoke of how he had seen elderly women clasp their hands in prayer and look at the sky, such is their terror, and said children were at times kept occupied by being shown episodes of Peppa Pig on a mobile phone.

Some of those rescued are suffering from cold, exhaustion or dehydration, are blind or deaf, missing limbs or are pregnant, rescuers say.

In 2018, there were usually fewer than 10 migrants per boat, while in 2019 and 2020 the average was in the high teens. In 2021, the average increased further, reaching 20 in March and 30 by August. It reached 40 per boat in June this year, then 46 in last month.

A total of 299 people were detected making the journey in 2018. The next year, 1,843 crossings were recorded, followed by 8,466 in 2020 and 28,526 in 2021.