Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Marking 20 years since port tragedy
A lorry coming into Kent 20 years ago led to one of the most horrific discoveries in the county’s history.
Just before midnight on June 18, 2000, 58 dead bodies were found in a sealed container in a Dutch lorry at Dover Docks. Just two people survived the ordeal.
It was later determined the Chinese migrants were trapped in the container for 18 hours and likely died of asphyxiation, although carbon monoxide poisoning was a possible cause of death.
The driver, 33-year-old Perry Wacker, from Rotterdam in Holland, was sentenced to 14 years in prison at Maidstone Crown Court the following year for his part in a people smuggling operation co-ordinated by a Chinese gang.
A court heard he’d closed the only air vent to the container. Nine members of the gang were later jailed for their part in the tragedy.
The 56 men and four women set off from China weeks before the lorry entered the UK, having each paid £20,000 to a Chinese snakehead gang.
In Belgrade they were taken to a safe house and given fake Asian passports before being taken into Hungary and smuggled through Austria and France and in to the Netherlands where they were again taken to a safe house.
It was in Rotterdam where they would be crammed into a lorry full of tomatoes and sent on the final stretch of their arduous journey.
The details were recounted to the court in harrowing detail by the two survivors of the journey, Su Di Ke, 20, and Ke Shi Guang, 22.
They explained when they left the Dutch city of Rotterdam the air vent was tied open and they were given four buckets of water for the journey.
The vent was closed by Wacker before he left Belgium to avoid the migrants being spotted. They were trapped inside the air tight container for more than nine hours on one of the hottest days of the year.
The two survivors were the last loaded in to the lorry and were dragged out barely concious at Dover.
It appears the people smugglers have not learned lessons from the past tragedy. On October 23, last year there was the discovery of 39 bodies in the back of a lorry at Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, Essex. The truck had entered the country at Tilbury from Zeebrugge, Belgium, carrying the Vietnamese nationals. Driver Maurice Robinson, 25, of Northern Ireland, was charged with manslaughter, people trafficking, immigration and money laundering. Ben Bano, from migrant support group Seeking Sanctuary, said: “The 20th anniversary is a sobering time and reminds of the many others who have died attempting to reach the UK. We also need to recall the lasting effects on the emergency services and other staff who had to deal with the aftermath of this tragedy.”
■ Those who died will be remembered in a service at the weekend as part of Refugee Week, which runs until Sunday. Organised by Seeking Sanctuary, the commemoration at 11.30am on Saturday will include a service on Dover seafront that will also remember all others who have died trying to reach the UK.
The Bishop of Dover Rt Rev Rose Hudson-wilkin will lead the service in front of a limited number of people. It will be live streamed at www.kentpahirestreaming.co.uk