Fear in Vietnam over bodies case

Forensic samples taken as families suspect relatives among the victims

Police have taken forensic samples from people in Vietnam who believe their family members may be among the 39 victims found dead in a container truck in England last week.

Up to 24 Vietnamese families had reported their missing family members to local authorities as of Sunday, the VNExpress website reported.

Police took hair, fingernail and other forensic samples from the family members in Nghe An province to try to help identify the suspected trafficking victims who were found on Wednesday in the vehicle container in an industrial park in southeastern England.

Thirteen people in Nghe An’s Yen Thanh district have been reported missing, with relatives fearing they were on the truck.

At their home in the district’s Tho Thanh village, the mother and a brother of Vo Ngoc Nam were awaiting news from Britain after not hearing from him for a week.

“We suspect that he was in the container in which people died. We don’t know what’s going on, but we think it’s true,” Nam’s older brother Vo Ngoc Chuyen said.

British police said all 39 victims were out of the truck and in a mortuary awaiting autopsies. They said the victims have not been identified and very few documents were found with the bodies.

Meanwhile, British police released three people on bail after questioning them: a 38-year-old man, a 38-yearold woman — both from the northern English town of Warrington — and a 46-year-old man from Northern Ireland.

Essex Police have charged the driver of the truck, Maurice Robinson, 25, of Northern Ireland, with 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering.