I can’t breathe: Daughter’s final texts
● Last message of suspected victim complained that she was suffocating
A family in Vietnam fears that one of the 39 people found dead in a refrigerated trailer in Essex this week was their daughter. They released Pham Thi Tra My’s devastating last text message, which read: “I am dying, I can’t breathe. I love you very much Mum and Dad.”
A Vietnamese woman feared to be among 39 migrants found dead in a lorry in Essex sent a text to her family saying she was suffocating.
The family of Pham Thi Tra My, 26, told the BBC they had paid £30,000 for her to be smuggled to Britain, which has now been repaid.
They said they have not been able to contact her since she sent text messages on Tuesday night – around two hours before the refrigerated trailer arrived in the port of Purfleet.
In one of the texts, she wrote: “I am really, really sorry, Mum and Dad, my trip to a foreign land has failed. I am dying, I can’t breathe. I love you very much Mum and Dad. I am sorry, Mother.”
Her brother told the broadcaster: “My sister went missing on 23 October on the way from Vietnam to the UK and we couldn’t contact her. We are concerned she may be in that trailer. We are asking the British police to help investigate so that my sister can be returned to the family.”
An international investigation is under way after eight women and 31 men were discovered in a refrigerated trailer in Grays in the early hours of Wednesday.
Essex Police initially believed all of the victims were Chinese nationals, but the force said at a press conference “this is now a developing picture”.
Six Vietnamese families have said they fear their relatives are among the victims.
Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills said the force would give no more details about the nationalities of the victims until formal identification had taken place.
Post-mortem examinations were due to begin yesterday.
The driver of the truck, named locally as 25-year-old Mo Robinson from Northern Ireland, remains in custody after he was held on suspicion of murder. A couple named locally as Thomas Maher and his wife Joanna, both 38, were yesterday arrested on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter and people trafficking. Detectives confirmed last night they had also arrested a 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland at Stansted Airport on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and on suspicion of manslaughter.
Mr and Mrs Maher claimed to have sold the Bulgarian-registered
Scania lorry cab, that picked up the trailer in Purfleet, to a company in Ireland.
Police officers could be seen at the couple’s home address in Warrington. Officers carried evidence bags inside the fourbedroom property, which had two grey Range Rovers with personalised number plates and a white Chevrolet sports car parked on the drive.