Police hold 154 near Channel Tunnel

Barbed wire guards the entrances to the tunnel

French police have arrested 154 refugees who broke into a freight terminal serving the Channel Tunnel.

French national rail operator SNCF said police searched trains destined for Britain for stowaways, forcing it to suspend freight services.

The mainly Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers had been staying at the Sangatte Red Cross refugee camp, which has been the focus of concerns about tunnel security.

A police official said they had seen an increase in the number of people trying to get into the Frethun freight terminal, a few kilometres from the Channel Tunnel entrance, over the past week.

He added: "This might be related to the fact that security has been boosted at the Eurotunnel site and as such the would-be migrants try to find weak points where they can get through."

The would-be migrants try to find weak points where they can get through

French police official

A Eurotunnel spokesman said its freight and passenger services were unaffected by the break-in.

But a spokesman for the French national train company SNCF said some of its freight was delayed: "Traffic was suspended for security reasons after the immigrants entered the tunnel, near the garage where the locomotives are kept."

Nightly attempts

The Sangatte refugee camp, three kilometres from the freight terminal, is home to about 1,200 mainly Afghan, Iranian and Iraqi and Turkish Kurd refugees.

In September a French court rejected a Eurotunnel bid to have the camp closed because of the nightly attempts by residents to cross illegally to Britain.

Each year thousands of illegal immigrants try to cross from France to Britain, braving the dangers of barbed wire, guard dogs and speeding trains.