Small boat migrant deaths leave Atlantic College students angry

Mr Jenkins said the Mediterranean Sea is “littered with skeletons and it’s a horrible situation”, while 2024 has also been the deadliest for people dying in the English Channel.

There are students from 60 countries at the independent sixth form college, and Mr Jenkins said: “In the Mediterranean there are young people who have seen this terrible narrative unfold on the television and said ‘no more, I can’t watch this, I must get involved’.

“The students here are angry and coming from all around the world, some of the students here will have experienced these horrors themselves, or will have been closely connected.”

Since 2018, more than 147,000 people have come to the UK on small boats.

Solving the problem has been a major focus for successive governments, and current Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to use counter-terrorism tactics to stop people-smuggling gangs “before they act”.

The Central Mediterranean is the main migratory route into the European Union and is known to be the world’s most dangerous.

In total, there have been 1,983 fatalities recorded by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) linked to the route this year.

Mr Jenkins said many people are fleeing war, oppression and poverty.

He added: “The misinformation that is surrounding the whole thing is part of the problem, they are told this is going to be easy.

“They’re told it’s going to be safe, they are told that Europe is waiting with open arms for them, and they’re extorted often.”