Britain’s National Crime Agency posted a picture of the Sudanese migrant sentenced on Friday for piloting a boat across the Channel on their X feed on Monday (February 5).

The man, the NCA wrote on X, "has been sentenced to 18 months in jail after an investigation into people smuggling. Tackling people smuggling is one of the highest priorities of the National Crime Agency, and we are determined that individuals who put other people’s lives at risk in pursuit of profit are held accountable."

Also read: UK government introduces more measures to combat migration

The NCA continued that in the case of the Sudanese national, they had "worked closely with our partners in France," and "were able to stop this boat off the coast of England, safeguard those aboard and ensure that [Howmalow M-D] was brought to justice."

When InfoMigrants visited Calais in 2021, most Sudanese migrants said that they didn't have the money to afford the crossing. They tended to attempt to enter the lorry parks to stow away on vehicles crossing the Channel by ferry.

However, Kurdish migrants we spoke to in a makeshift camp in the forest suggested that if you agreed to pilot a boat, you would get a cheaper deal for your passage, because of the potential for criminal prosecution if caught by the authorities. Some younger migrants seemed to think this was a tempting prospect.

Pleaded guilty

The 21-year-old Sudanese national was arrested in September 2023, the NCA stated in a press release. He was arrested on suspicion of "illegal entry and facilitating illegal immigration in Dover." He remained in custody after his arrest.

The boat the Sudanese migrant is accused of piloting is thought to have been involved in the death of a woman who died while attempting to board the boat on the French side.

According to the BBC, Howmalow M-D "was spotted in control of the boat" on September 26, 2023. The NCA stated that the man "attempted to move away from the tiller as they approached."

Howmalow M-D told investigators he left Sudan in February 2021 and traveled through Chad, Libya, Tunisia and Italy before reaching France. He initially told investigators he hadn’t been in control of the vessel at any time, or asked for payment from any of the individuals on board. But later, he pleaded guilty to facilitating illegal immigration, stated the NCA, reported the BBC.

UN Refugee Chief highlights 'forgotten' plight of Sudanese

News of his sentence comes just as UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi warned that due to the continuing unrest in Sudan, more and more Sudanese nationals may flee the country. Grandi said he feared the conflict and its effects were being "ignored" by the international community and had been "forgotten" by the world.

Retrial started in another man accused of piloting Channel boat

The sentence comes just days after a retrial started for another migrant accused of piloting a boat across the Channel in which four people died. A Senegalese national named as Ibrahima B. sits at the center of the trial. He told investigators he had traveled from Senegal to Mali, Algeria and then Libya two years before he eventually boarded a boat on the Channel.

Some passengers in his trial have defended him, saying they owe their lives to his piloting, but another passenger said at the first trial that he had been driving the boat "at an unsafe and excessive speed," reported the UK tabloid newspaper The Standard. The passenger also claimed to have heard him say, "I will either take you there or kill you all."

The boat thought to have been piloted by Ibrahima B. was found by a fishing boat, the Arcturus, as it was in the process of sinking. The fishermen, along with crews from the volunteer lifeboat force RNLI, the air ambulance and the UK’s Border Force then intervened. 39 passengers were brought ashore at Dover.

The exact number of migrants who drowned in the incident is not known. Ibrahima B. has denied all charges against him.

Returns deal with Turkey 'unlikely to go ahead'

Also on Friday last week, the UK’s Home Office had to announce that a potential returns agreement to send migrants back to Turkey was also "unlikely to go ahead," reported the German news agency dpa.

According to a report in the British right-leaning newspaper The Times, British ministers had been hoping they could conclude a similar returns deal with Turkey, like the one they already have with Albania. But an internal review, according to the Times, found that Turkey is "a state that does not meet the criteria of being 'generally safe'."

In fact, 99% of Turkish asylum cases in the UK are based on the applicant’s fears of the Turkish state. In 2023, according to Home Office figures, the numbers of Turkish nationals attempting to reach the UK by small boat rose from about 2% a year in 2022 to 10% in 2023.

A Home Office spokesperson told dpa: "International cooperation plays a crucial part in tackling illegal migration and the UK and Turkey are close strategic partners, with a future-focused relationship." The spokesperson added that the UK will always seek to return people to their home country, when it is found an "individual has no legal right to be in the UK."

The latest British government figures for small boat crossings show that since the beginning of 2024, some 1,335 people crossed to the UK.

Sunak faces up to failure on some pledges

It has been a year since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak laid out a series of five pledges to the British people about what he intended to achieve in his premiership. As the country gears up for an expected election later this year, the Prime Minister is being held to account on the pledges.

He has already admitted that the government has failed to reach their targets on some of the pledges. Although government ministers continue to claim success in their migration policy, their latest Rwanda bill, which would allow them to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda, is still making its way through parliament.

The boats carrying migrants across the Channel from France have not stopped, although there were fewer crossings in 2023 than in the previous year.

And now the Prime Minister has been criticized after an interview was broadcast of him talking to right-wing journalist Piers Morgan and appearing to "bet" £1,000 over whether or not he could get a Rwanda flight off the ground before the election.

'Bet' on migration policy causes outrage

Amid the outrage the interview caused, Morgan commented on X that he thought he would win the bet, calling the Rwanda policy “bonkers” and saying it seemed like a “win-win” situation to him, because if he did win, it would mean Rishi Sunak would have to donate £1,000 to a refugee charity.

On February 5, the Home Office released a statement confirming it had also jailed an Albanian man accused of steering a yacht "full of Albanian migrants, including a child, towards the UK."

Third smuggler sentenced

Eduard M. was found guilty of piloting a "dangerously overcrowded and badly equipped yacht across the North Sea from the Netherlands, despite having no safety equipment or navigational devices."

The man received a sentence of two years and eight months. According to the Home Office press release, Eduard M. was tracked by Dutch authorities as it sailed towards the eastern coast of England. The Dutch authorities tried to make contact with the vessel but failed and alerted the UK authorities. The vessel was finally intercepted two days later, in August 2023, by a Border Force patrol vessel as it entered UK territorial waters.

Border Force officers said that "dozens" of migrants were crammed below deck, including an eight-year-old child. Two of the migrants on board the boat had already received deportation orders from the UK. They have since been removed from the country, stated the Home Office.

Eduard M. pleaded guilty to his charges after arrest. With the help of the Dutch authorities, the British investigators found evidence linking Eduard M. to the purchase of the yacht.

Chris Foster, Deputy Director of Criminal and Financial investigations at the Home Office commented: "People smugglers are going to increasingly extreme lengths to bring people into the UK illegally. Today’s sentence reflects the severity of this brazen smuggling attempt that spanned over 120 nautical miles of open seas."