Migrants attempting hazardous sea crossings to Europe – and in many cases, ultimately to Britain – have offering a sobering insight into their motives for risking their lives – with one saying it was a question of “Europe or die”.

Home Office figures published on Friday indicate almost 17,500 people have arrived in the UK via small boats so far this year.

Meanwhile statistics compiled by the Labour Party suggest more than 25,000 have done so since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister in October 2022.

The debate over the best course of action to take has raged for years, with the Government currently attempting to place migrants claiming asylum on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland while their cases are decided upon.

Additionally, attempts to move some illegal migrants to Rwanda have been the subject of a protracted legal challenge.

Felix, a 36-year-old from Nigeria, offered grim insights into his life when speaking to the Daily Telegraph in the Tunisian city of Sfax, located just 75 miles across the Mediterranean from Italy.

He said: “There are babies, children, and pregnant women sleeping on the ground,”

“This is dehumanising. This is torture for us.

“The racism is intense. We don’t have homes or jobs.

“We don’t even have anywhere to bathe. I see myself as a slave in this country.”

Samuel, 27, added: “I lost so many of my friends and brothers to the civil war in South Sudan.

”I went to Sudan and then Libya before coming here…still I have no good place to lay my head.”

Hundreds of migrants from countries in sub-Saharan Africa has been sleeping rough in Sfax, in filthy conditions, for almost two months after many were ejected from their homes in purges a few months ago.

As a result, many have been trying to get to Italy and from their on to other EU countries, irrespective of the money spent by the bloc to limit their numbers.

Luis, 40, from Cameroon, explained: “For us, it’s Europe or die. We don’t have any fear anymore.”

His words resonate particularly because according to the the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), more than 1,800 migrants have died in the Mediterranean so far in 2023, compared to 1,400 for the whole last year.

On Monday a migrant Boat Sank off Tunisia’s port city of Sfax, leaving five people dead and seven others missing, according to officials, with a child among the dead.

In total, 23 people were rescued out of 35 people on board, most of them Tunisians and a “small number of sub-Saharan nationals,” said Faouzi Masmoudi, a Sfax court spokesman

The boat sank shortly after leaving from the Sfax area, Mr Masmoudi said.

The week before, close to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a merchant ship took aboard four survivors who were adrift in a smugglers’ engineless boat.

They recounted how they had been tossed into the sea when towering waves knocked over their vessel and that 41 fellow passengers died.