Last year a group called Channel Rescue began watching the waters off Dover, to ensure the safety of those arriving on our shores. They explain why this is more important than ever
Louise vividly remembers her first Channel watch. She had just moved from London to Dover when, one morning last autumn, she got up at half past five. After a few tries to get her 1980s moped going, she was off. “I’m driving through the mist on top of the cliffs, racing to meet a man in the dark.” Fifteen minutes later, she was at the car park of a local golf course, metres from the cliff edge. The only car there belonged to her fellow volunteer. “I met Joe and he was totally lovely. We chatted and watched the darkness through a telescope. And then, very slowly, watched it get light.”
Magnificent as it was, Louise, 30, and Joe, 36, were not there for the view. They are volunteer human rights observers for Channel Rescue (CR), established in 2020 as a citizens’ response to last year’s surge in migrants attempting to cross the Channel from France. The originators were a loose group of anti-racist and anti-fascist activists based, mostly, in London. They crowdfunded £19,000 and modelled their mission on the longstanding human rights monitoring around the Greek island of Lesbos.
