Twenty people rescued from English Channel: coastguard, media

LONDON (Reuters) - Twenty people, including 18 Albanians, have been rescued from the English Channel after an inflatable boat they were in started taking on water, officials and local media said on Sunday. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said in a statement that a call was made close to midnight on Saturday and the inflatable boat was found in the early hours of the morning by a search and rescue helicopter, lifeboats and rescue teams off the coast of the county of Kent. Sky News later reported that 18 Albanians and two Britons were being questioned by border force officers. Hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have risked their lives to come to Europe in flimsy boats, fleeing war and poverty, but few have used the route across the Channel. (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, editing by Angus MacSwan)