Several children including a baby are among about 50 people to have arrived after crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The migrants, who have arrived at Dungeness, Kent, follow 25 people who were intercepted by the UK authorities on Monday (March 14).

More than 2,000 people have crossed the Channel since the start of the year with 28,526 making the crossing in 2021.

The arrivals on Tuesday were brought ashore on an RNLI lifeboat with families wrapped in blankets and children being carried up the beach assisted by crew members and police officers.

Minister for Justice and Tackling Illegal Migration, Tom Pursglove MP, said: “The rise in dangerous Channel crossings is unacceptable. Not only are they an overt abuse of our immigration laws but they also impact on the UK taxpayer, risk lives and our ability to help refugees come to the UK via safe and legal routes. Rightly, the British public has had enough.

“Through our Nationality and Borders Bill, we’re cracking down on people smugglers and fixing the broken system by making it a criminal offence knowingly to arrive in the UK illegally and introducing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for those who facilitate illegal entry into the country.”