EASTER REALITY FOR MIGRANTS AT CATHEDRAL

MIGRANTS are camping outside one of the UK's most famous landmarks as the small boats crisis intensifies, the Daily Express can reveal.

- Michael Knowles

Around 50 people, mainly from Eritrea, are sleeping rough on the steps of Westminster Cathedral over Easter.

Witnesses have said the number has grown over the past three months, from "five to 10" to dozens in recent days. They are sleeping on pieces of cardboard and use sleeping bags to stay warm at the site near London's Victoria Station. Some have pitched tents.

Security officers arrive early every day to wake the migrants and move them on before morning services at the cathedral.

But they move belongings underneath a nearby tree and then shift them back later in the day.

Witnesses said "95%" of those sleeping rough outside the cathedral say they are Eritrean.

Some said they arrived in Britain on small boats and want to be put in taxpayer-funded hotel rooms.

It comes as charities warn the number of migrants registering as homeless has spiked over the past 12 months.

More than 9,000 have crossed the Channel so far in 2025, a record number for the first four months of a calendar year.

And yesterday another migrant died trying to reach the UK in a small boat.

Lifeboats and a coastguard helicopter raced to the middle of the Channel after a medical emergency - but a man was pronounced dead as a Border Force vessel returned to Dover. It brings the tragic death toll this year to eight.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: "Our weak Labour Government has lost control of our borders and turned us into softtouch Britain.