In just one year, 117 people have been arrested at Cobham services, most fleeing war-torn countries where human rights abuses were rife.

Between August 2014 and August 2015, 106 men and 11 women had been found and arrested on suspicion of illegal entry into the UK at the M25 services, a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Elmbridge Comet has revealed.

Of those people, 16 were children and teenagers, and 71 were under 30.

They were all arrested as suspected illegal immigrants, not as refugees.

But the Comet has learned they had travelled from as far as Afghanistan, Albania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria, in the hope of finding a new home.

The majority of those arrested at Cobham’s £75m services – which includes a Costa Coffee, Marks & Spencer and Starbucks – came from Eritrea, with 62 people having made the journey from the north-eastern part of Africa.

Despite having a population of just 6.3m, more Eritreans have filed for asylum in the UK this year than from any other nation.

A United Nations report released in June said: “The Government of Eritrea is responsible for systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations that have created a climate of fear in which dissent is stifled [and] a large proportion of the population is subjected to forced labour and imprisonment.”

The country, 3,500 miles from UK shores, is also often referred to as the “North Korea of Africa” due to widespread human rights abuses.

Last month, 27 men were arrested at Cobham services after being found in a lorry.

The driver, a 50-year-old Italian man, was arrested on suspicion of facilitation. The Home Office was unable to confirm if he has since been bailed or charged and a spokeswoman said the office would not provide “a running commentary”.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Last year Border Force and the French authorities foiled nearly 40,000 attempts to cross the Channel illegally – more than double the year before. We use the latest technology and intelligence leads to target the organised gangs behind this criminality.”

France and the UK signed a deal on August 20 agreeing collaborative measures to deal with the growing numbers of refugee hopefuls in Calais. This included a new jointly run command and control centre.

Stephen Hale, Refugee Action chief executive, said: “Focusing exclusively on preventing people from reaching Calais and attempting to cross the Channel will merely drive people to forge new and more hazardous routes as we’ve started to see signs of already.”

Three men were found on the M25 clinging to the bottom of a lorry at the weekend, before being arrested.

On Tuesday night, police were called to a spot about 2km from the French entrance to the Channel Tunnel after people were reported to be climbing on trains.

Hungarian police also arrested the driver of a lorry found on an Austrian motorway last Friday with 71 decomposing bodies, including a baby girl, inside.