Another day, another lorry load of arrivals shows up in Britain
A GROUP of 15 migrants have been found stowing away in the back of a lorry at a motorway service station.
The migrants, claiming to be Eritrean and Ethiopian, were detained at the Farthing Corner Services on the M2 near Gillingham, Kent by police and Border Force officials.
The group, understood to be aged between 18 and 33, was handed over to immigration officials after getting out of the vehicle on Wednesday.
A motorist, who did not want to be named, said: ‘I was there at about 5pm. There were three cop cars surrounding a foreign lorry where the migrants were packed in the back like sardines.’
Kent Police later confirmed that they had found 15 people in the lorry, which was carrying a cargo of dog biscuits. It is not known from where they had travelled in the lorry.
Recent Home Office figures reveal that twice as many Albanians have been caught as stowaways at UK ports as any other nationality.
Some 981 ‘clandestine migrants’ from Albania, which borders Greece, were found at UK entry ports from 2008 until the spring of 2016, according to a Freedom of Information request by The Guardian newspaper.
The second highest number of stowaways in the same period were Afghans (425) followed by 424 Algerians, 348 Iranians, 322 Indians, 129 Palestinians and 124 Vietnamese.
Most clandestine migrants are discovered as they try to board boats and trains bound for Britain rather than on UK soil.
In recent times, hauliers have little incentive to hand over migrants stowed away in their lorries because of the heavy fines they can receive.