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British police said that 39 people found dead in a truck near London are believed to be Chinese nationals, in a case that has triggered national outrage over the people trafficking business.
Emergency workers discovered the bodies early on Wednesday inside the refrigerated container of a truck parked in an industrial area east of London, shortly after it had arrived on a ferry from Belgium.
Police are conducting the country’s largest murder probe in more than a decade into what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as an “unimaginable tragedy”.
The local police force, who have arrested the truck’s driver on suspicion of murder, said eight of the dead were women and 31 were men.
Police have begun the process of trying to identify 39 bodies found in a lorry on an industrial estate in Essex. Detectives now say the refrigerated trailer containing the victims arrived at Purfleet from Zeebrugge in Belgium at around 12.30am on…
“All are believed to be Chinese nationals,” Essex Police said in a statement on Thursday.
However the Chinese embassy in London said yesterday that British police had yet to confirm their nationality, a day after a consular official travelled to Essex.
An embassy spokesperson earlier said Chinese authorities had read the reports with a “heavy heart” and were in close contact with police “to seek clarification and confirmation”.
The deaths echoed the discovery of 58 Chinese immigrants hidden in a Dutch truck in the English port of Dover in 2000. Only two survived.
“It (has) happened elsewhere but it makes you more shocked that it could happen in your area,” May Lovett, a 33-year-old owner of a cafe by the local docks, said.
“I don’t know how people can be so evil,” added Rashda Imran, a mother living in the area for 18 years.
In China the news had gathered more than 870 million views on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform by Friday morning, with more than 165 000 comments.
“No matter what nationality they are, it’s a tragedy,” said one.
With the help of immigration officials and the National Crime Agency (NCA), Essex Police are leading the biggest murder probe in Britain since the 2005 London terror attacks that killed 52 people.
Its officers searched three properties in Northern Ireland overnight in connection with the investigation.
The addresses are believed to be linked to the arrested truck driver, a 25-year-old man from the province, who police have remanded in custody until yesterday. — AP
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