Conditions at an overcrowded migrant centre in Kent were akin to living in a prison or a zoo, a recent resident has told the BBC.

Ahmed - not his real name - said people at the Manston processing centre were treated like “animals” with 130 people forced to share a single large tent.

More than 4,000 migrants have reportedly been held at the camp - meant to host 1,600 - in recent days.

But Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has insisted numbers are coming down.

Ahmed - who left the centre on Monday after 24 days there - described being forced to sleep on the floor, and being prevented from going to the toilet, taking a shower or going outside for exercise.

He told the BBC that he fled his home country in search of freedom and to avoid persecution, saying that he had been living in fear for his life.

But after arriving in the UK and at the centre, Ahmed said people were prevented from calling their families to let them know they had made the crossing to the UK safely.

“For the 24 days I'm in there, I can't call to my family to say to them I'm dead, I'm living - they don't know anything about me,” he said.

“All people in there, they have a family. They should know what is happening to us.”

Manston, a former military base in Kent, opened as a processing centre in February for the growing number of migrants reaching the UK in small boats. Migrants are meant to be held there for short periods of time while undergoing security and identity checks.

They are then supposed to be moved into the Home Office's asylum accommodation system, which often means a hotel due to a shortage of available accommodation.

But Manston became even more crowded at the weekend when 700 migrants were sent there from another centre in Dover, which was firebombed.

Several hundred asylum seekers were relocated from the Manston centre on Tuesday, according to one of the MPs in Kent, Conservative Sir Roger Gale.

More will leave throughout the week he said, tweeting: “This must never be allowed to happen again.”

Mr. Jenrick tweeted on Tuesday that the numbers of migrants held at the centre had “fallen substantially”.

“Unless we receive an unexpectedly high number of migrants in small boats in the coming days, numbers will fall significantly this week,” he said. “It's imperative that the site returns a sustainable operating model and we are doing everything we can to ensure that happens swiftly.”

But the British Red Cross said “the serious problems at Manston are indicative of the wider issues facing the asylum system”.

A huge number of migrants have arrived in the UK this year. So far this year, there have been almost 40,000 arrivals in Kent - with nearly 1,000 crossing the Channel on Saturday alone. (BBC)

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