140 migrants land at United Kingdom base in Cyprus

It is believed to be the first time during the current migrant crisis in the Mediterranean that migrants have made landfall on United Kingdom sovereign territory.

She said: "We will sue Facebook".

Children who were also on the boats were pictured happily playing with each other inside the hangar as they blew up rubber gloves and chased them around.

Britain and Cyprus have failed to agree over which country would be responsible for resettling a large group of Syrian refugees whose fishing boats washed up on a United Kingdom airbase in Cyprus on Wednesday (22 October).

A number of Iraqi Kurds are believed to have landed at RAF Akrotiri in 1998.

"If the MoD can't detect and intercept refugees, there would appear to be a significant vulnerability as yet unaddressed at a time when security and defence are apparently at the fore of the Conservative government agenda".

The UNHCR said that it still not been able to visit the refugees because they were on a military base, but that high-level talks were under way between British and Cypriot officials and that the agency had offered to mediate.

The MoD spokesperson said: "We have had an agreement in place with the Republic of Cyprus since 2003 to ensure that the Cypriot authorities take responsibility in circumstances like this".

But the boat's engine sputtered out and the Lebanese crew fled in an inflatable dinghy.

The base, which was retained by Britain when it accorded independence to Cyprus in 1960, is considered to be British sovereign soil.

The huge military facility had been used to bomb Islamic State targets in northern Iraq since September 2014. There is at least 150 miles of ocean between the base, on the southern coast of the island, and the Syrian shoreline. Authorities initially said there were four boats, but later corrected that figure to two.

Nearly 600,000 migrants are estimated to have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year, with the majority coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea.