UK police find 39 bodies in truck,driver arrested

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British police found the bodies of 39 people inside a truck believed to have come from Bulgaria at an industrial estate near London.
The truck was thought to have entered at Holyhead,a north Wales port that is a major entry point for traffic from Ireland,on saturday and to have originated in Bulgaria.

The driver is under arrest for murder

REUTERS

This happens all the time with immigrants from Central America and Mexico who seek to enter the United States illegally.

Although the article doesn't clearly state this, it appears that the individuals were illegal aliens trying to migrate into the U.K. and probably died inside the truck during transit.

Some more details are emerging:

The rear white truck container – which was registered in Bulgaria – went from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in England via ferry around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, police said. It docked in the Thurrock area shortly after and left the port shortly after 1:05 a.m. [So it didn't travel through Ireland or Wales]

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry confirmed the Swedish-made Scania truck is registered in Bulgaria’s Black Sea port city of Varna to a company owned by a woman from Ireland.

Police have not formally tied the deaths to human trafficking, but a link was assumed because of the way the victims were crammed into the truck’s container.

Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, told the BBC the truck's container appeared to be a refrigerated unit, where temperatures could be as low as -13 degrees Fahrenheit.

Source: Truck with 39 bodies entered England from Belgium via ferry, police say as new details emerge

Police have identified people found dead in the truck as Chinese nationals.

more arrests:A man and a woman both aged 38 were arrested today in northern England on suspicion of trafficking and manslaughter,the 25 year old driver of the truck(lorry) Mo Robinson of Northern Ireland is still in custody.

It's believed that the truck entered through Wales and the container containing the dead bodies entered through the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before leaving for the UK.

The bodies of 31 men and 8 women [believed to be from China] were found dead inside the truck container early Wednesday at the Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, a town about 25 miles east of London.

Hua [Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying] said Chinese authorities are also seeking information from police in Belgium since the shipping container in which the bodies were found was sent to England from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

Source: British police investigating truck deaths arrest 2 more, driver still in custody

Vietnamese may be some of the dead in lorry container.

Text message:I can't breathe from missing Vietmanese woman to father.

It is believed now that most of the dead in the truck container are from Vietnam.

Very few documents were found with the bodies, Essex Police Detective Chief Inspector Martin Pasmore said.

He said officers were trying to identify the bodies through fingerprints, DNA, dental records and distinguishing features such as tattoos or scars.

Police found 500 items in the trailer, including clothing, bags and mobile phones.

Father Anthony Dang Huu Nam, a Catholic priest in the remote town of Yen Thanh in northern-central Vietnam’s Nghe An province, told Reuters he believed most of the dead were Vietnamese.

Truck driver charged with 39 counts of manslaughter in British human trafficking case

Police in Vietnam are taking hair and blood samples of relatives of those believed dead in the truck in the UK.
To try to indentify possible victims.

British police said Friday that all 39 people found dead in a refrigerated container truck last week were Vietnamese nationals while authorities in Ireland and Vietnam confirmed that three more people had been arrested in those countries in connection with what appears to be a human smuggling tragedy.

Maurice Robinson, 25, of Northern Ireland, has been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. Authorities say Robinson drove the cab of the truck to Purfleet, where it picked up the container, which had arrived by ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Another man was arrested Friday in Ireland and two others in Vietnam. The Vietnam suspects, believed to have organized the operation, were arrested in Ha Tinh province following reports from 10 families there that they were missing relatives, VTV television reported. Col. Nguyen Tien Nam, deputy chief of Ha Tinh provincial police, said the suspects were directly involved in the deadly set-up in which people paid smugglers to be taken to England.

In Ireland, 23-year-old Eamon Harrison was arrested on a U.K. warrant and Essex Police have begun extradition proceedings to bring him to Britain to face 39 counts of manslaughter, as well as human trafficking and immigration offenses.

Police have also asked two other suspects from Northern Ireland, brothers Ronan and Christopher Hughes, to hand themselves over to police. Police believe the brothers are currently in Northern Ireland but said they have links to the Irish Republic.

Source: UK police confirm 39 people found dead in truck were from Vietnam, 3 more suspects arrested

A very similar scenario is unfolding in Northern Greece.

Dozens of men and boys were found hiding in a refrigerated truck along a highway in northern Greece on Monday, according to officials, the discovery coming less than two weeks after 39 migrants were found dead in the back of a similar truck in Britain.

The truck stopped in Greece is believed to have crossed into the country from neighboring Turkey. The 41 migrants were discovered in the truck on a highway near the northern Greek city of Xanthi after police stopped the vehicle for a regular check.

All of the migrants except for two – an Iranian and a Syrian – were from Afghanistan, while six were minors, according to police. Eight were treated in a hospital for breathing problems, while the others weren't found to be suffering from health issues.

Police arrested the 40-year-old Georgian driver of the truck, which had Bulgarian plates. Officials told the Associated Press the refrigeration on the truck hadn't been switched on.

Source: Greek authorities discover 41 migrants in refrigerated truck, mostly Afghans

Some of the names of the victims had emerged in news reports before. Among them was Pham Thi Tra My, a 26-year-old woman whose heartbreaking final text message to her mother vividly brought home the scale of the tragedy. Her family had been unable to contact her since the text arrived saying she was suffocating.

"I'm so sorry mom and dad.... My journey abroad doesn't succeed," she wrote. "Mom, I love you and dad very much. I'm dying because I can't breathe .... Mom, I'm so sorry."

Ten teenagers – two of whom were only 15 years old – were among the 39 migrants found dead inside a refrigerated truck container in southeast England last month, police investigating the human trafficking tragedy revealed Friday.

Essex police released the names of the victims – all from Vietnam – discovered inside a shipping container on Oct. 23, in what is believed to be one of the country’s most deadly incidents involving people smuggling.

Source: Essex truck death victims include 10 teenagers, two as young as 15: British police