The Times: Britain's dramatic move to avert hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving this summer

Police from the National Crime Agency will help North African countries dismantle people-smuggling gangs in a bid to stop what it says are plans to displace hundreds of thousands to Europe this summer.

Immigration Secretary Robert Jenrick began a five-day tour of North Africa and Europe today, travelling to Tunisia and Algeria to showcase ways to help the UK tackle people-smuggling gangs. Generic will also meet with Libyan officials.

Ahead of its launch, Jenrick told The Times: "We are taking the fight to upstream human smuggling gangs to help prevent dangerous and unnecessary migration before it reaches the UK."

Collaborate with everyone

He stressed that his country is not only deepening cooperation relations with European countries, including Italy, Albania and France, but also seeks to strengthen its cooperation with other transit countries, as well as source countries.

The Italian government, for example, expects some 400,4 irregular migrants to seek entry into Italy from North Africa this year, four times the number last year.

Britain's Home Office has said it fears the situation could lead to a rise in the number of migrants trying to travel to the UK in small boats and trucks.

This year, some 7569,<> migrants crossed the English Channel towards Britain in small boats, and the Home Office expects more migrations in the summer and is stepping up efforts to curb gangs that are active in smuggling migrants.

Exploitation?

Experts have warned in an interview with Al Jazeera that some European countries may seek to exploit the economic need of countries in North Africa to try to push them to contribute effectively to the fight against irregular migration.

At a time when countries in the region are demanding a real development policy mainly in the source countries, and then in the transit countries, Europe contributes effectively and substantially, explaining that the security policy alone is not enough to put an end to irregular migration.

Recently, official British figures showed a record rise in the number of migrants arriving in the country in 2022.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that 606,<> migrants arrived in the UK last year.

This figure is the difference between the numbers of people who left the country and those who arrived. In 2022, 1.2 million people arrived in the UK, and 557,<> migrants left.