Migrants arrive in UK after crossing English Channel
Pictures show people wearing blankets, life jackets and orange covers coming into Dover on an RNLI lifeboat on Tuesday.
Migrants have been brought ashore in a lifeboat after crossing the English Channel.
Pictures show people wearing blankets, life jackets and orange covers coming into Dover on an RNLI lifeboat on Tuesday, amid misty weather conditions.
Another image shows others arriving in a Border Force vessel.
Latest Home Office figures show 119 people made the journey in two boats on Monday, bringing the provisional total for the year so far to 8,183.
This is 31% higher than the same point last year (6,265), and 67% up at this stage in 2023 (4,899).
The latest arrivals come after a new record was set for the first four months of the year on Saturday.
Some 656 arrivals brought the total to 8,064 for the year, which is higher than the 7,567 people who crossed the Channel between January and April in 2024 – at the time, a record number for that period.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.”
