'Super' Saturday?! 600 migrants arrive in 12 boats

The English Channel has seen a huge surge in small boat arrivals on Saturday, after bad weather prevented Channel migrant crossings for almost a week.

Around 600 Channel migrants made it to UK waters in 12 small boats.

Several Border Force vessels and the Dover lifeboat have attended multiple small boat sightings since the early hours.

Criminal people smuggling gangs took advantage of a short improvement in the weather and a very high tide, to push the boats off from a huge stretch of beach.

The boats were launched from Dunkirk in the north, to Boulogne around 60 miles further south.

Saturday's arrivals are the first migrant boats to make the illegal crossings since 300 people crossed in 5 dinghies on Tuesday.

Tuesday's arrivals took the number of Channel migrants so far this year to more than 20,000.

Those who arrived on Saturday were taken initially to the Border Force facility at Dover harbour, before being moved to the migrant processing facility at Manston airbase in Kent.