‘Good anti-sinking capacity, lifejacket optional’: journey of a ‘refugee boat’

From a factory in China to an English beach, rubber dinghies are acquired by people-smugglers to transport desperate people

Against the backdrop of Dunkirk's busy port with its cranes and smoke, a collapsed, grey rubber dinghy lies on the shore, abandoned and washed in by the tide.

It is one of the many haunting signs of the thousands of desperate people who have attempted to cross the Channel from northern France.