According to RIA Novosti, the expensive equipment for Zeebrugge, as well as for the smaller Belgian port of Ostend, was fully paid for by Great Britain, which is interested in reducing the influx of refugees from the continent.
Illegal immigrants are rushing to Britain, hoping to take advantage of its liberal immigration legislation. The new equipment includes detectors capable of detecting a person inside a container by heartbeat, as well as scanners capable of examining a container millimeter by millimeter and detecting a refugee hidden in it. By the end of the year, a mobile scanner mounted on a truck worth 2.5 million euros is expected, which will be able to scan vehicles on roads approaching the coast.
The means currently available in Belgian ports make it possible to find people in trucks, but not in metal containers. Police also have portable heartbeat detectors, but their range is 300 meters, and they react to all people in the area, including port workers.
After France and Great Britain jointly closed the transit channels for illegal immigrants across the English Channel from French territory at the end of last year, closing the displaced persons camp in Sangatte, the flow of illegal immigration rushed through Belgium. Last year, only in the port of Zeebrugge were 3,766 people attempting to illegally cross the English Channel detained. This is 20% more than in 2001 and twice as much as in 1999. It is hard to say how many managed to slip through unnoticed. Preliminary statistics for January show a sharp increase in the immigration flow.