Around 60 migrants who refused help from the French coastguard and spent more than 30 hours at sea have arrived in Dover.
British rescue boats were sent to collect the passengers of a migrant dinghy on Tuesday and the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency said they would be transferred to Border Security Command.
The French coastguard said around 60 migrants on a small boat spent more than 33 hours at sea “in precarious conditions” and refused help as they were “determined to take all risks to reach the United Kingdom”.
The boat, which was shadowed by a French coastguard vessel, left the Normandy coast on Monday morning.
It was expected the migrants would be taken to Gosport on Tuesday, with local MP Dame Caroline Dinenage saying the Home Office had told her it was “increasingly likely that a small boat will need to be disembarked in the local area in the coming hours”.
The vessel carrying the migrants headed east along the coast, arriving at Dover early on Wednesday morning.
Migrants could later be seen disembarking wearing orange life jackets and carrying personal belongings.
Around a dozen protesters were spotted in the area, with local police having blocked off a nearby road.
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