Despite the extra mileage, Devon is as much a draw to the desperate as Dover

Exhausted migrants arrived on British beaches in their hundreds yesterday, faced with the immediate prospect of Border Force and the less immediate prospect of a plane ticket to Rwanda.

While Border Force focused their efforts in Kent, picking up boats in Dover and Dungeness, others evaded authorities by landing in Devon almost 300 miles away. Slapton Sands was at the centre of a major police incident involving suspected migrants on Wednesday, a rarity for south Devon.

Devon and Cornwall Police said a group of about a dozen people who landed on the beach at around 7am yesterday were taken away in vehicles, one with blacked out windows. There has been an appeal for witnesses to help locate the passengers.

While migrants are rarely spotted in Devon, occasionally they run aground on its shores. Eight people were on board a boat which ran aground in a cove between Dawlish and Teignmouth in December 2020. A previous smuggling attempt ended in failure near Teignmouth, Devon, for which three traffickers have been jailed. In 2019, 30 illegal immigrants believed to be Vietnamese arrived on the beach on the fishing port of Newlyn, west of Penzance. Four people were later arrested for suspected people smuggling.

The journey would have been significantly longer for the migrants, with the closest part of France 88 miles away compared to 21 miles to Dover.

The majority of migrants landing some 280 miles away in Kent shook their heads when asked if they knew about the Rwanda plan. In Dungeness, beneath blue, cloudless skies, a lifeboat crew was scrambled to rescue around 40 migrants. One man, who paid £10,000 to a people smuggler to make the trip across the Channel, said he had heard of the Rwandan policy, but didn’t believe it would actually be carried out.

Bashir Sultan said he fled Afghanistan and travelled to Iran then Turkey before finally making his way to France.

When asked what he thought about the Rwanda scheme, the 36-year-old said: “I don’t like it. I’ll stay here. I don’t want to go back. I don’t think people will follow the policy.”

The group, which was made up of Afghans and Kurds and included an elderly woman and one small girl of around seven, were met on Dungeness beach by waiting immigration officials.

One frightened family initially refused to get off the lifeboat and climb down onto the beach because of the height of the ladder on the vessel.

They were allowed to stay onboard temporarily while the boat was winched back into the RNLI station before getting off and being whisked away in the waiting coach.

Thirty miles up the coast in Dover, toddlers and young children were among the crowds that came ashore as low winds created ideal weather conditions for crossing the Channel. Around 150 people were brought in at Dover on Wednesday by Border Force ships Typhoon and Vigilant. Once on the beach, soldiers in camouflage fatigues and immigration officials in hazmat suits put them on buses bound for processing centres.

The majority were men ranging in age from late teens to 40s, but women and young children were seen disembarking boats. One man clutched the hand of a toddler as he came along the gangway, closely followed by a boy and girl, both of primary school age.

Two boats used to make the crossing were brought into the harbour, both partially deflated. One of the boats contained lifejackets and two children’s inflatable rubber rings.

Back in Dungeness, after the buses had taken the migrants away and the RNLI members had cleaned the boat and tidied their station, one volunteer told a woman walking past: “More will come tomorrow.”

One man had paid £10,000 to a people smuggler and did not think the Rwanda policy would be carried out