Dozens of migrants have made it across the English Channel in small boats for the first time in a week.
Around 40 people are understood to have been detained as they took advantage of a change in weather conditions as strong winds eased.
One boat with 13 people – 11 men and two teenage boys – landed on Shakespeare’s Beach at Dover in Kent with a second understood to have landed further down the coast at Kingsdown near Deal.
The Home Office are yet to release any official details of today’s detentions.
It comes after 393 migrants were detained in 26 small boat incidents last Tuesday.
A further 13 migrants arrived in Dover by dinghy today after crossing the Channel in the dark last night
Up to forty migrants arriving by dinghy are brought into harbour by HMS vigilant this morning
But strong winds and rough seas have made the crossing too dangerous to attempt for the past week.
September has been a record month with at least 1,880 making the treacherous journey across the world’s busiest shipping route this month.
More migrants made it across the 21 mile stretch of water known as the Dover Strait in September than in the whole of 2019.
Border Force officials and police escorted the migrants away after picking them up from the shores in the early hours of the morning
The migrants were then given masks and transferred to Border Force officials
On September 2, a record number of 416 migrants in 28 boats. The total to arrive and be detained by Border Force officials so far this year stands at 6,905 according to official Home Office figures – not including today’s figures.
The latest migrant crossing comes as it was revealed that asylum seekers who are being housed in an army barracks in Kent are being crammed into rooms of 20 people.
Refugees who are staying at the Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, have revealed that 20 people are being forced to share two toilets and two showers between them, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Discarded clothes and and shoes were spotted strewn across the pebble beach this morning
One migrant, Suley, 19, from Ethiopia, told The Mirror: ‘In my room there are two of us and that is OK, but in the next room there are 20 people in there, probably more.’
And another refugee, from Sudan, added: ‘It is dangerous with the virus, people are too close, and we are told the virus will get worse in winter.
‘If only one person gets infected then lots of us will get infected within a day.’
Refugees are now being held at the Napier Barracks and another old barracks in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
The latest migrant crossing comes as it was revealed that asylum seekers who are being housed in an army barracks in Kent are being crammed into rooms of 20 people
Just two days ago, four Sudanese asylum seekers who travelled 3,000 miles across five countries to get to the UK, said: ‘We wish we had stayed in France.’
They had been held at a taxpayer-funded hotel but were moved last week to a former Army barracks in Folkestone, Kent, now being used to house migrants as their asylum claims are processed.
This site and a second near the village of Penally in Wales have been heralded by some as a sign that Britain will no longer be a ‘soft touch’ for people traffickers.
But human rights groups and migrants have criticised the camps as being like ‘prison’, while locals have raised concerns about the large influx of young men in their areas.
Pictured: The 13 migrants who crossing the Channel overnight and were picked up by Border Force officials and police this morning
One of the four Sudanese asylum seekers, Amin Adam, said residents of the Kent camp – which has a 10pm curfew – were ‘kept like animals in pens’.
He added: ‘The food is no good. There is only one toilet. I should have made my application [for asylum] in France.
‘We have more rights here [in the UK] than in France. I want to go to school in England and work. But this place [the barracks] is no good.’
The four, who said they are in their 20s and 30s, all fled the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan.
They first made their way to Libya, before travelling by boat to Malta, then Sicily, and on through Italy to arrive at the remnants of the notorious Jungle encampment in Calais, northern France, at the beginning of the year.
They said they met for the first time in Calais and spent around seven months sleeping rough before attempting the Channel crossing in a dinghy they found on the beach.
Adam, Mohammed, Hussain Abu-Bakr Mohammed and Yassin Mohammed were plucked from the water two months ago by a Border Force patrol as water cascaded into their vessel.
After being processed, they were sent to a hotel in Slough, Berkshire, to await the results of their asylum applications.
Last week they were among the first to be placed at two Army facilities that will temporarily be used to house migrants.
The Home Office said the use of sites such as former barracks could save taxpayers up to 50 per cent of the cost of hotel placements.
It comes amid an influx of Channel crossings – almost 7,000 this year alone – and a lack of space as a result of the pandemic.
Both camps have attracted protests from far-Right groups, while the Stand Up To Racism West Wales campaign said a former military facility is a ‘completely inappropriate’ place to house those who had fled war.
Another asylum seeker moved to the Folkestone camp said he was given 30 minutes’ notice to leave his accommodation at a hotel in Chiswick, west London.
‘I haven’t slept for five days,’ the former computer engineering student added. ‘There is too much stress. It’s like a prison.’
Pictured is a general view of Napier barracks in Folkestone, Kent, that is being used as a makeshift migrant camp
Pictured is an aerial view of the converted army barracks in Penally, Wales
He said he feared there would soon be hundreds in the camp and ‘I am worried about Covid’.
There were clashes between far-Right and counter-protesters at the camp in Wales last week but yesterday messages of support were tied to the barracks and clothes left at the entrance.
A government spokesman described the camps as ‘contingency accommodation’, adding: ‘We have worked tirelessly… to provide asylum seekers, who would otherwise be destitute, with suitable accommodation.’