Four children were among a group of 11 people rescued from a boat off the Kent coast on Saturday morning.
The vessel was reported to Border Force at about 4am by “maritime colleagues”, a spokesperson for the Home Office confirmed.
“A Border Force cutter and a lifeboat were deployed to assist a dinghy off the coast of Dover with 11 people on board,” he said. “The group consisted of six men, one woman and four children. Eight have presented themselves as Iraqi nationals with the remaining three claiming to be Iranian nationals.”
After receiving medical assessments, the members of the group were transferred to immigration officials for interview.
On Tuesday, six people thought to be refugees were rescued from a small boat six miles off the Kent coast.
Coastguards and a lifeboat crew were deployed in the early hours, before Border Force patrol officers brought the group ashore at Dover.
Police have previously likened the 21-mile journey across the Channel from France to “trying to cross the M25 at rush hour on foot”.
Many Iranians are driven to the west by economic hardship, which has been exacerbated by US sanctions reimposed in November.
Iranian citizens made more asylum applications in the UK than any other nationality in the past two years, according to Home Office figures. In 2017, Iranians accounted for 9% of 26,350 total applications.
