A sporting goods company has stopped selling kayaks in its shops in northern France as record numbers of migrants attempt the perilous journey across the English Channel into Britain.

       French retailer Decathlon said the vessels “could be used to cross the Channel” and that its branches there would still sell safety equipment such as life jackets.

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       The move came after three people were reported missing last week, and two others were rescued from the water, as a pair of kayaks washed up near the French port city of Calais. Also last week, 1,185 people ventured across the Channel in a new daily record that the U.K. Home Office described as “unacceptable.”

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       The crossing of migrants — many of them Yemenis, Iraqis, Afghans and others seeking refuge — has turned into a point of contention in the post-Brexit tussle between Paris and London. Tensions between the two have also simmered in a dispute over access to fishing waters.

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       Ahead of its exit from the European Union last year, Britain deployed military drones to surveil people in dinghies trying to enter. On the other side, French police have cleared makeshift camps where hundreds of migrants had lived on the northern coast, while aid workers urge authorities to find housing alternatives.

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       Nearly three times as many migrants and asylum seekers have crossed by sea this year compared with last year, and a number have died. Some migrants want to reach Britain to reunite with family, aid workers say, and others because they speak English.

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       At the Strait of Dover, the Channel, one of the world’s busiest commercial shipping lanes, is some 21 miles wide, and can be dangerous for people in small flimsy boats, particularly when hammered by high winds.

       Decathlon cited those risks in its decision. It told Agence France-Presse it halted kayak sales in some stores in France’s northern tip, including Calais. The city remains a congregation point for desperate migrants years after France dismantled the squalid “Jungle” camp there that had become one symbol of Europe’s refugee crisis.

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       The vessels, which cost more than $200, remain for sale online and in other Decathlon shops, which exist in dozens of countries.

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       The company did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. It told a regional French newspaper earlier that the latest rise in crossings pushed its Calais staff to question kayak sales, because “people’s lives could be endangered.”

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