Eurotunnel faces delays after thousands of migrants tried to cross into England via the Channel Tunnel last night
Last night 2,000 migrants tried to reach the UK via the channel tunnel, according to Eurotunnel.
"It was the biggest incursion effort in the past month and a half,” a spokesman for the operator told the BBC. "All our security personnel, that is nearly 200 people, as well as police were called in.”
The migrants, mainly from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan, tried to enter the tunnel from Calais in France between midnight and 6am.
Eurotunnel said some damage was caused to its fences, and serious delays have resulted for train services at both ends. Today, passengers in the UK were delayed by an average of one hour while in France they were delayed by 30 minutes.
An “almost nightly occurrence”
Migrants have increasingly been attempting to cross the tunnel into the UK, and at the beginning of the month French news agency AFP estimated that around 3,000 migrants were camping in Calais in order to make the trip.
A second Eurotunnel source said the attempts had become an “almost nightly occurrence”.
Eight migrants have already died this summer trying to make the journey, and Eurotunnel confirmed that some people had been injured in Monday's attempts.
Earlier today, home secretary Theresa May held talks with French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve about the escalating problem.