Police now suspect smuggling victims were Vietnamese

Up to 12 families in Vietnam have reported kids missing

LONDON — British authorities said Saturday that their investigation into the death of 39 suspected migrants discovered in a truck container in Essex was now focusing on the Vietnamese community after they initially thought the victims were Chinese.

Detective Chief Inspector Martin Pasmore told reporters that investigators were working on the assumption that the victims were Vietnamese nationals, but that “there may be other nationalities involved.”

He said he had met with the Vietnamese ambassador to Britain, Tran Ngoc An, and that authorities would share fingerprints with their Vietnamese counterparts in a bid to identify the dead.

All of the bodies have now been moved from the truck in Tilbury Docks to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford for post-mortem examinations.

Also on Saturday, a fifth suspect in the case was arrested at Dublin port and will appear before a judge later in the day, Britain’s PA news agency reported.

Four others, including a 48-year-old from Northern Ireland who was detained at Stansted Airport on Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and manslaughter, remain in custody.

Several Vietnamese families said Saturday that they feared their relatives could be among the victims.

Bui Huy Cuong, deputy chairman of the Can Loc District People’s Committee in Ha Tinh Province, told dpa he had received information about eight missing people.

“Five families have reported to us and asked for help (in finding their missing children),” he said.

According to local newspaper VnExpress, as many as 12 families in central Vietnam have reported their children missing since October 23.

Nguyen Dinh Gia, 57, told dpa that his son had migrated to Europe in 2017 and had informed him that he was being smuggled from France to Britain as part of a group of migrants earlier this week.

He said he received a call from a Vietnamese man to inform him about the deaths, but that he was unsure of the man’s identity and whether he was a smuggler.

“Now I do not have any hope about his life. I am sure he is dead, but I am trying to keep 1% of hope that he is still alive,” Gia said.

On Oct. 25, a rights activist revealed text messages 26-year-old Pham Thi Tra My sent to her mother in Vietnam saying she was “dying because I can’t breathe.”

Hundreds of Vietnamese nationals are trafficked to Britain each year, according to the charity Ecpat. They are forced to work in slavery-like conditions.