A flotilla marking the 85th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation was forced to divert due to a migrant dinghy in the English Channel.
The fleet of 66 vessels set sail from Ramsgate, Kent, at 6am on Wednesday to commemorate Operation Dynamo, which saw the ‘Little Ships’ rescue 300,000 Allied soldiers over 10 days in 1940.
But a migrant boat incident which claimed two lives led to the flotilla lengthening its crossing to Dunkirk to give a wider berth to a dinghy still in the Channel.
The Telegraph reported that sailors were told in a maritime frequency message: “There is a [French] warship on our head with a migrant [boat] close by. And we’ve been requested to give one nautical mile distance from that vessel, over.’
A French-accented voice, believed to be from the French naval vessel Oyapock, then replied: ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’
