25 migrants found alive in freezer trailer
A FERRY bound for Britain was dramatically turned round last night after 25 migrants were found in a refrigerated container on board.
The alarm was raised after the group – believed to include at least one child – made a hole in the trailer they were crammed into.
The vessel, a Britannia Seaways ship operated by DFDS, was en route for Felixstowe, Suffolk, from the port of Vlaardingen in the Netherlands.
The discovery comes less than a month after 39Vietnamese migrants were found frozen to death in a refrigerated trailer which had been
brought from Belgium to an industrial estate in Grays, Essex.
The roll-on, roll-off ferry was not far off the Dutch coast when the latest group were spotted at around 5pm.
A fleet of police vehicles and up to 20 ambulances were sent to meet the ferry as it returned to port.
All the migrants were put in a bus and taken to hospital to be checked for signs of hypothermia.
Police said later that 23 were transferred to a police station.
Meanwhile sniffer dogs were brought in to search the ship for any other stowaways.
Gert Jakobsen, vice president of communications for DFDS, said: “It’s rare they hide in a refrigerated trailer and of course they were not in a very good condition.
“Unfortunately this is not the first time we have had such a situation, even though we try to prevent it.”
Last night there was no information on the ages or sex of any of the group or where they come from.
Police investigating the mass tragedy in Essex have made a series of arrests in the UK and Vietnam.