‘IT WAS SO COLD I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE’
THE men who travelled in the back of a truck bound for Rosslare had not eaten in three days as stowaways and feared they were going to die.
One of the men, with the help of an interpreter, revealed to the Irish Mail on Sunday this week the journey they had taken from Iraq and Iran, on to Turkey, then France, and finally to Ireland.
But some mistakenly believed they were destined for the UK.
The 16 men discovered in the back of a truck paid human traffickers as much as €15,000 each for the chance to start a new life in Europe.
And it has also emerged that after spending three days without food or water in the refrigerated trailer – where they were packed in so closely together they were not able to move – the men feared they were going to suffocate.
Describing their harrowing journey to Ireland, one of the men told the MoS this week: ‘I was three days on the truck. I didn’t eat. I had nothing. I was hungry.
‘I couldn’t move. I was behind pallets. It was cold. . . I kept warm in the truck by staying in a corner. That’s why I went there. I didn’t bring food.
‘When I opened the door I tried to breathe because I’m so. . . I was nearly dying inside. I didn’t know what to do, when I opened the door I breathed. I couldn’t breathe inside. It was very dangerous. I thought I was going to die.
‘I was hungry, I [wanted] food, I [wanted] to eat. The man who opened the door [on the other side] saved my life.
‘I cannot go back because I have some problems in my country. My family sent me away. They gave the money to people. They gave €15,000.
‘I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know I was going to Ireland. . . I came here to be safe.
‘I came alone. I don’t know any of the other men.’
The group were rescued last Thursday after staff working on the Cherbourg to Rosslare ferry heard noises coming from the trailer the men were travelling in.
Fifteen of them are aged between 20 and 35, and there was also one unaccompanied
‘Someone tore up my passport in Turkey’
child among the group.
The men were transferred to Balseskin reception centre in Dublin and the children have been taken into care.
It is believed the 16member group are Kurds from Iran and Iraq.
They made their way to Ireland after first boarding a truck in Turkey, then transferring to a second truck which boarded the ferry in France.
The group were travelling for five days in total and they were put in the two trucks by Afghani and Turkish men under the cover of darkness.
And although relieved to have survived such a treacherous journey, many of them don’t want to stay here.
One of the survivors explained: ‘I come from Iraq and I had to leave there because I had problems with a soldier. Some people from Turkey brought me here.
‘I went from Iraq to Turkey by car. I don’t know where in Turkey I was put on the truck because it was night. Somebody tore up my passport in Turkey. I was put in a second truck but I don’t know where because it was night. Then we went to the ferry and we came straight here. I didn’t see the drivers . . . we were put in the back of the truck.
‘I don’t like to stay here. I have family in England.’
The migrants found in a sealed, heat-controlled container bound for Ireland knew about the 39 tragic stowaway deaths in the UK last month – but said it was ‘worth the risk’.
The men told gardaí they were ‘still willing’ to travel, according to well-placed sources, although some of them were so fearful that they were wearing several pairs of clothes for fear they too would die in the freezing cold.
Immigration officers interviewed, in a ‘preliminary way’, the 15 men and the juvenile found in the container that left France on Wednesday night.
They were discovered on Thursday morning when a ship worker on a routine inspection heard suspicious noises on the ferry.
When he found the men, they shouted in broken English and gestured with their hands. The truck driver, a man in his 50s from Wexford, was summoned to help open the container.
Some of the men shouted out when the doors opened. They had been there for ten to 12 hours.
The container held a large volume of pharmaceuticals, the value of which could be worth up to a million euro or potentially more, say sources.
There is ‘no suggestion’ that the truck driver, working on behalf of a Wexford-based company, was complicit.
The driver and the owner of the truck are co-operating fully with the investigation.