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Migrants are sleeping outside one of London's best known landmarks in new crisis

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Migrants are camping outside one of Britain’s most famous landmarks as the small boat crisis intensifies, the Daily Express can reveal. Around 50 people – mainly from Eritrea – are sleeping rough over Easter on the steps of Westminster Cathedral. Witnesses have said the number has grown over the last three months, from “five to ten” to dozens in recent days.

The desperate migrants sleep on pieces of cardboard and use sleeping bags to stay warm at the cathedral, near London’s Victoria Station. Some have even pitched tents.

Westminster Council told the Daily Express "most" of the rough sleepers have travelled to the area from other parts of the country.

Migrants are sleeping outside Westminster Cathedral (Image: Jeremy Selwyn)

Dozens of sleeping bags line the steps of Westminster Cathedral (Image: Jeremy Selwyn)

Migrants are sleeping outside Westminster Cathedral (Image: Jeremy Selwyn)

Security officers arrive early every morning to wake them up and move them on before services at the cathedral start but the migrants move their 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 the UK on small boats and now want to be put in taxpayer-funded hotel rooms.

Charities have warned the number of migrants registering as homeless has spiked over the past 12 months.

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

And on Friday 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.