Record number of migrants across the English Channel - far-right activist arrested

Ten boats with 781 migrants crossed the English Channel on Wednesday alone. It is the highest number in one day for this year.

Video clips shared on social media have shaken many on both sides of the channel. In one, a man is seen wading in the water with a child on his shoulders when he is thrown over by a wave and is run over by a boat loaded with people. The child ended up under the boat, but the French rescue service managed to save it. The man is said to have boarded the migrant boat on his way to England. His relationship to the child is not known.

Three people trying to cross the canal have died in the past week. On Monday, a man was found dead on a beach near Boulogne-sur-Mer. On Thursday, a second migrant was found dead on the same beach, and a third man suffered a cardiac arrest after an altercation on a small boat at Camiers.

So far this year, roughly 18,000 people have arrived in England in small boats. This is, according to the British Home Office, a decrease of 42 percent compared to the same period last year. Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood this week ordered an "urgent review of border security".

At the same time, the anti-migration network Patriot Platform, which was founded by the British right-wing activist Daniel Thomas - former bodyguard of the right-wing extremist Tommy Robinson - has protested against asylum seekers in several places along the English south coast.

Thomas, who calls himself Danny Tommo, was arrested this week by police after publishing a video in which he is seen from a motorboat leaning over the railing and cutting up an inflatable boat with a knife. A rescue worker was on the boat, but escaped without injury.

Daniel Thomas has previously shared clips showing sabotage against rubber boats at sea and where he himself is heard shouting "traitor" to rescue workers.

Protesters gathered on Tuesday in Gosport, Hampshire, after Thomas, who is now suspected of vandalism, posted on YouTube that the migrants would be brought ashore by lifeboats there and called on his supporters to stop them.