Hundreds of migrants a week ‘breach UK border security in lorry drops’

ABOUT 200 migrants from the Calais area are being smuggled into Britain in lorries each week, officials and security sources said yesterday.

The estimate — equivalent to more than 10,000 illegal migrants arriving each year — represents a surge in the number of so-called “lorry drops”, in which migrants who have hidden in the back of goods vehicles jump out after reaching the UK.

The revelation prompted calls last night to strengthen British efforts to secure the border. Official figures show a continuing rise in the number of migrants found in the backs of lorries and cars arriving in Britain.

They more than doubled to 6,400 last year, the chief inspector of borders and immigration said in a report last month. The new estimate, from French sources, suggests that many more are coming through undetected.

Gangs of armed people-smugglers operating around Calais have started systematically forcing lorries to stop before they reach the port so that migrants can break in.

The main route to the port was described as a “no-go area” between midnight and 6am by Philippe Mignonet, the deputy mayor of the French town. The motorway is regularly blocked with felled trees and debris by masked smugglers, often brandishing large sticks and sometimes knives. French police responded to mounting political pressure by rushing 140 additional officers to the area this weekend.

Previously, hundreds of migrants were attempting to get through the Channel tunnel nightly, often disrupting tourist traffic and storming the ferry port on several occasions.

That stopped after security was tightened last year, with more fencing around the ferry port and the Eurotunnel entrance, which was also protected with a “moat”, consisting of a flooded, low-lying area.

Consequently, migrants are now forced to travel further from Calais to stow away in lorries heading for the tunnel or cross-Channel ferries. “Each lorry is

packed with dozens of migrants and many are stopped before they reach England,” a regional security official said.

“But we are certain that a few get through. The estimate is around 200 a week. We know others are crossing in small boats or vans.”

Andrew Bridgen, a Tory MP, said: “It shows that we need to redouble our efforts to secure our borders – that will remove the incentive for migrants to remain in the camps in Calais.

“We need more use of heat sensors to detect illegal migrants in commercial vehicles. Surely the French can help us? They don’t want the Jungle camp there in Calais either.”

The Home Office keeps no tally of the estimated number of illegal migrants entering Britain as it is difficult to estimate those who pass through without being caught, but an official suggested that the figure might be “exaggerated”.

However, unprecedented numbers of migrants are flooding into the notorious Jungle camp, indicating that that they know their chances of crossing the Channel are good.

After months of increasing violence in and around the camp, the number of migrants sheltering there has swollen to a record of about 9,000, according to Xavier Bertrand, the conservative president of the Calais region.

Not only are migrants continuing to arrive in Calais from Italy and other Mediterranean countries, they are now also coming from Germany, apparently preferring to attempt to reach Britain rather than staying where they are to take up Chancellor Angela Merkel’s offer of resettlement.

Mr Bertrand urged the French government to get tough on people-smugglers and migrants terrorising motorists and lorry drivers heading to Calais.

“When migrants are found in a lorry, they’re usually escorted by police a few hundred metres away, but most of the time there are no legal proceedings and that must change,” Mr Bertrand said.