Afghans, Iranians and Eritreans most common small boat arrivals this year
Albanians account for 4% of the 2023 total so far, compared with 28% last year.
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Your support makes all the difference.People from Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea together account for around four in 10 migrants who have arrived in the UK on small boats so far in 2023.
Albanians represent 4% of this year’s figure, compared with 28% last year, according to new provisional data from the Home Office.
Afghan nationals account for the single largest group of arrivals from January to October 2023, at 20% of the total.
They are followed by Iranians (11%) and Eritreans (10%).
Turkish nationals made up 2% of the total in 2022, but account for nearly 10% of arrivals in the first 10 months of 2023.
The mix of nationalities of people arriving on small boats across the English Channel has varied from year to year.
In 2018 and 2019, when comparatively few crossings were recorded, most arrivals were Iranian nationals (80% and 66% respectively).
A change came in 2020, with Iranians still the leading nationality but accounting for 28% of arrivals, followed by Iraqis (19%), Sudanese (11%) and Syrians (9%).
Iranians and Iraqis together accounted for more than half of arrivals in 2021 (30% and 22% respectively), with a mix of countries once again making up the rest.
There was another change in 2022: Iranian and Iraqi nationals dropped to 13% and 10% respectively, with Albanian (28%) and Afghan (20%) the leading nationalities.
The data for 2023 so far suggests a new trend is emerging, with a sharp drop in Albanian arrivals and a jump in the proportion who are from Turkey.
All figures are based on the total number of arrivals where nationality has been recorded by the Home Office.
Following the spike in summer 2022 in the number of Albanian nationals arriving in the UK on small boats, the governments of both countries struck an agreement to work together to prevent people from making the journey.
This included placing UK border force staff in Tirana airport in the capital of Albania, the exchange of senior police officers, and the creation of a joint migration task force.
The cumulative number of small boat arrivals this year currently stands at 27,314, down 35% on the total at the same point last year.