The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Family of lorry victim begged her not to go
POLICE: Driver due to appear in court today charged with 39 counts of manslaughter
The family of a young Vietnamese woman thought to be among the 39 migrants found dead in a lorry in Essex said she dismissed their pleas not to travel.
Pham Thi Tra My, 26, has not been in contact with her family since sending a final text message home on Tuesday saying she could not breathe.
Police later found the bodies of eight women and 31 men in the refrigerated trailer of a lorry on an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, in the early hours of Wednesday.
The lorry driver, 25-year-old Maurice “Mo” Robinson, from Northern Ireland, is due to appear in court today charged with 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering.
Three people arrested in connection with the deaths have been released on bail, Essex Police said yesterday.
Relatives of Ms Tra My told the BBC they have not been able to contact her since she sent a text on Tuesday night saying she was suffocating.
“I am really, really sorry, Mum and Dad, my trip to a foreign land has failed,” she wrote, adding: “I am dying, I can’t breathe. I love you very much Mum and Dad. I am sorry, Mother.”
Ms Tra My is reported to have paid a charge of about £30,000 to people smugglers in order to be brought into the UK illegally.
Her father, Pham Van Thin, told Sky News: “We tried to talk her out of it because it would be a very difficult journey for her as a girl... She took a risk and decided to go, and we had to agree.”
He added: “We all have been in shock. I cannot explain our pain.”
He told CNN that smugglers said the crossing was “a safe route” and that people would go by aeroplane or car.
“If I had known she would go by this route, I would not have let her go,” the father said.
Essex Police are now working on the largest mass fatality victim identification process in its history.
Investigators will look at tattoos, scars and belongings. More than 500 exhibits have been collected, including mobile phones, which will be interrogated for any clues to the identity of the victims.
Detectives are investigating a “wider conspiracy” after claims surfaced that the lorry may have been part of a convoy of three carrying around 100 people.
The mother and a sister of 19-yearold Bui Thi Nhung were told by a family friend in the UK that she had died after paying thousands of pounds in the hope of finding work in a nail bar.
Another Vietnamese father, Nguyen Dinh Gia, fears his 20-year-old son, Nguyen Dinh Luong, was among the victims.
In Belgium, police are hunting the driver who delivered the trailer to Zeebrugge, the port it left before arriving in the UK.