Yahoo News Border Force intercept highest number of migrants to cross Channel in a single day
Border Force ships have intercepted the highest number of migrants to have crossed the Channel in a single day.
A flotilla of dinghies carrying at least 86 men, women and children made it to British waters on Tuesday, including two small boats that made landfall.
The migrants are being processed by Border Force officers at a makeshift centre in Dover, Kent, as officials struggle to deal with increased numbers of migrant arrivals.
Holiday park worker Stewart Ide called the police to Greatstone beach, in Littlestone, Kent, after he spotted a boat landing at the beach just before 11am on Tuesday.
The dad-of-three said: “I was having my breakfast in my office which looks out onto the sea when I noticed a boat.
“I saw a dinghy and got my binoculars out to check I wasn’t dreaming.
“I saw loads of immigrants in a small grey rubber dinghy.
READ MORE YAHOO NEWS HERE
Border control systems face fire from travellers wrongly delayed
‘We have nowhere to go’: The stateless UK residents that no country wants to accept
“I couldn’t believe it, it looked liked something off a film. They were all dressed in black.
"It was so surreal – I called the police as I ran down to the beach and found them freezing, scared and hungry.
“I hugged one man and said ‘welcome to England’."
Police arrived within minutes and rounded up at least 13 migrants.
Mr Ide said he was shocked a navy boat had not spotted the migrants’ arriving.
A further nine people who landed on Pett Level Beach, near Winchelsea, East Sussex, were detained, medically assessed and interviewed.
As well as the two beachhead landings, the Border Force intercepted four vessels, starting with two vessels early in the morning, one carrying 11 people and the other with 12.
The 23 Iranian, Afghan, Pakistani and Filipino migrants were taken to Dover, Kent, to be medically assessed and interviewed by immigration officials.
Around midday, a Border Force boat intercepted a vessel near Dungeness, Kent, and brought it back to Dover.
Of the 18 people on board, 14 presented themselves as Iranian, three as Iraqi and one as Vietnamese.
Also around midday, Border Force was alerted to another boat in the Channel that picked up and transported to Dover.
There were 23 on board the boat, who identified as nationals of Iran and Ethiopia, bringing the total number of migrants to 92.
