Lors d'une conférence de presse à la police maritime d'Ostende, le ministre de la Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, a déclaré que l'approche sévère adoptée envers les passeurs a entraîné une baisse de 90% des migrants en transit vers le Royaume-Uni.

Today, the Belgian Minister of Home Affairs, the Belgian State Secretary for Asylum Policy and Migration met with the British Home Secretary in London to discuss the issue of transit migration.

In the summer of 2017, more and more transit migrants, who wish to go to the UK, were staying in the Maximilian park in Brussels. The Belgian government did not want this park to become ‘a new Calais’. A number of transit migrants were intercepted and detained. Because a lot of them were presumed Sudanese, a Sudanese delegation was invited to come to Belgium for identification. Left-wing politicians and NGOs stressed that the Sudanese regime’s human rights record is particularly worrying. Campaigns were organised to better inform the transit migrants. On 04.10.2017 these issues were debated in the Belgian Parliament.