Iranian migrants are massing along the French coast, with plans to cross the English Channel.
Two dozen men and women, all in their twenties, fled the Islamic Republic only days ago.
They now sit in a corner of the Jungle, a migrant settlement in Loon-Plage, northern France.
One migrant, sitting in the corner known as Eastern Kurdistan, said “there are many more on their way”.
International experts have warned the conflict in Iran could send an “unprecedented” amount of migrants into Europe’s borders.
If just 10 per cent of Iran’s 90 million people were displaced, it would rival some of the largest refugee movements this century.
Tobias Ellwood, a former Conservative MP, told GB News: “You can’t just affect a country by bombs alone and expect it to all end well.”
The first wave of migrants from Iran have already began to emerge as a result of the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests and the fallout of the 12-day war with Israel last year.
PICTURED: Migrants walk into the sea to board a dinghy and attempt to cross the Channel
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Jiletni, 21, told The Times that he did not flee due to military action.
Rather, he fled with friend Fatah to escape the Iranian regime’s “constant surveillance”.
He hails from Kermanshah in the Kurdish region of Iran, where more than 40 protesters were shot in the city by security forces, according to reports.
Iranians accounted for 11 per cent of the over 41,000 migrants who arrived in Britain through the Channel last year.
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Tents being erected in the Jungle, a migrant camp in Loon-Plage, France
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They also became the most common nationality to arrive at British airports without documentation.
Another Iranian immigrant Muhammed, 24, introduced a new group of Iranian arrivals to the facilities in the camp.
Speaking to them Farsi, he pointed them towards food stalls run by local charities.
He told The Times that he would be killed if he returns to Iran for his activism, and added that it is likely his friends and family have been killed in air strikes conducted by American and Israeli forces.
A migrant woman is helped to board a dinghy in Gravelines, France
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Between 2015 and 2024, 62,000 Iranians applied for asylum in the UK, according to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.
Some 590 migrants crossed the Channel on February 25, the biggest one-day surge this year.
Senior maritime sources told GB News at the time that it was likely there would be “another record year” for illegal small boat crossings.
The International Organisation for Migration, a UN body, has appealed for de-escalation in the Middle East, with fears that ongoing military escalation would add to the 19 million refugees already displaced due to “conflict, violence, and disasters”.
