UK police says truck victims were all Chinese

BRITISH police said yesterday that 39 people found dead in a truck near London were all believed to be Chinese nationals, in a case that has triggered national outrage over the people trafficking business.

Emergency workers discovered the bodies early on Wednesday inside the refrigerated container of a truck parked in an industrial area east of London, shortly after it had arrived on a ferry from Belgium.

Police are conducting the country’s largest murder probe in more than a decade into what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as an “unimaginable tragedy.”

The local police force, who have arrested the truck’s driver, said that eight of the dead were women and 31 were men.

“All are believed to be Chinese nationals,” Essex Police said.

China’s foreign ministry said its embassy staff in London were heading to the scene “to verify this situation.”

An embassy spokesperson said Chinese authorities had read the reports with a “heavy heart” and were in close contact with police “to seek clarification and confirmation.”

For years, illegal immigrants have attempted to reach Britain stowed away in trucks, often from the European mainland.

The force confirmed officers had searched three properties in Northern Ireland overnight in connection with the investigation. The addresses are believed to be linked to the arrested truck driver, a 25-year-old man from the province.

Police said a coroner would try to establish the cause of death of the 39 victims, before investigators then attempt to identify each individual.

“We will continue to work with partners and other law enforcement agencies to establish exactly how these 39 people lost their lives in such an untimely way. This process will be complex and lengthy, as well as incredibly challenging for all those involved, but we will not stop until we get answers for the loved ones of those who have sadly died,” Essex Police said.

Officials moved the truck to a “secure location” at nearby Tilbury docks, “to give the utmost dignity to those within the trailer as we prepare for a coroner’s post-mortem examination,” Essex Police said.

The container section came by ferry from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge into Purfleet on the River Thames estuary — a crossing that takes nine to 12 hours. The vessel docked there at around 12:30am on Wednesday and the truck left the port area about half an hour later.

Police were called to the Waterglade Industrial Park in nearby Grays at around 1:40am.

Prosecutors in Belgium have launched their own probe and confirmed yesterday the container had on Tuesday passed through Zeebrugge, one of the world’s busiest ports for cargo on trucks.

“It is not yet clear when the victims were placed in the container and whether this happened in Belgium,” the federal prosecutor’s office said.

It added that its investigation “will focus on the organizers of and all other parties involved” and be carried out in close cooperation with Britain.

Essex Police revealed the tractor unit of the truck entered Britain on Sunday on a ferry from Dublin to the Welsh port of Holyhead.

They had earlier said they believed the tractor originated in Northern Ireland.

The vehicle had licence plates issued in Bulgaria after it was registered there in 2017 by an Irish citizen, according to Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. He said the unit had not entered Bulgarian territory since and there was “no connection with us.”

In another incident on Wednesday, police in Kent in southeast England said they had discovered nine people stowed away inside another truck, after stopping the vehicle on a motorway.

After precautionary medical checks, they were passed to immigration officials.

In Grays, locals were shocked at the deaths — and angry at the perpetrators of human trafficking.

“I don't know how people can be so evil,” said Rashda Imran, a mother living in the area 18 years. “They sell all these dreams about coming to our country.”

The NCA warned in its last annual report issued last year that traffickers “favor hard sided refrigerated lorries to transport migrants to the UK.”

It also said Belgium had become “a major focus for people smugglers” targeting Britain.

Shaun Sawyer, national spokesman for British police on human trafficking, said thousands of people were seeking to come to the United Kingdom illegally. While they were able to rescue many of those smuggled in, Britain was perceived by organized crime as a potentially easy target for traffickers.

“You can’t turn the United Kingdom into a fortress. We have to accept that we have permeable borders,” he told BBC radio.

(AFP)