Four stowaways found alive in ship container
Random search turns up men in Montreal
• Four men are being treated in hospital after they were found inside a shipping container at the Port of Montreal early Thursday morning.
Neither the RCMP nor the Canadian Border Services Agency would confirm reports that the four men may have been in their hiding place for as long as three weeks. Vessel Tracker, a company that specializes i n maritime i nformation services and tracking vessel movements, reported the men were in the container for at least 12 days.
The men, aged 30 to 40, were suffering from dehydration, two of them severely, but paramedics said their lives were not in danger.
The men were responsive when they were discovered inside the container, but couldn’t speak English or French, said Francois Labelle, the chief of operations at Urgences- santé who was on site at the hospital where the men were being treated.
The men are originally from The Republic of Georgia, according to media reports.
They were transported by ambulance and under a Canada Border Services Agency escort to Santa Cabrini hospital. The men were in stable condition when they arrived at the hospital, said Stéphane Smith, the other chief of operations at Urgencessanté.
Smith said two of the men had difficulty breathing.
“Many days, the exact number, I don’t know, but we’re talking many, many days,” Smith said when asked how long they had been inside the container.
RCMP Const. Érique Gasse confirmed the discovery, noting that since the four had entered the country illegally, the case had been handed over to the CBSA.
The container ship arrived in Montreal on July 19 at 1: 28 p. m., according to Marine Traffic, a company that specializes in tracking vessels. It left Hamburg, Germany, on July 10 a shortly after midnight. It made stops along the way on July 18 in Quebec City and TroisRivières before stopping in Montreal.
The men were found during a random inspection of the container by the CBSA.