Human trafficking : Majority of 39 UK truck victims from Vietnam
Travel Biz News —
A total of 39 Vietnamese citizens are found dead in a truck in Britain this week , agencies report.
British police initially said all of the 31 men and eight women found early Wednesday (October 23) in a refrigerated lorry in an industrial park in Grays, east of London, were believed to be Chinese nationals.
Four people have been held over the incident, which has shocked Britain and shed light on dangerous trafficking routes into Europe taken by undocumented migrants.
The driver of the truck, 25-year-old Maurice Robinson from Northern Ireland, was arrested at the scene. He faces 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering .
Britain-based community group VietHome said it had received “photos of nearly 20 people reported missing, age 15-45” from Vietnam, a popular source for smuggled migrants looking to better their lives in the UK.
The truck carrying the migrants arrived in Purfleet on the River Thames estuary on a ferry from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.
A married couple was held in Warrington in northwest England on Friday, including a woman who allegedly once owned the truck that carried the container, according to media reports. The pair denied any involvement and said the truck had been sold to an Irish company more than a year ago.
A fourth suspect, a 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland, has also been arrested.
Investigators started carrying out autopsies Friday to establish how the victims died before the work begins on trying to identify them.
The police investigation is Britain’s largest murder probe since the 2005 London suicide bombings.
Many Vietnamese have their sights set on Britain, where they end up working in nail salons or on cannabis farms, hoping for quick riches.
They can pay smugglers up to US$40,000 for the dangerous journey across eastern Europe – often via China or Russia – an enormous sum in Vietnam where the annual per capital income is around US$2,400, according to the World Bank.
Those who cannot pay upfront often have to work off their debt to traffickers, which may include a fee for falsified documents.
The Vietnamese embassy in London is working to “accelerate the process of confirming the victim’s’ identities”, according to a statement from the foreign ministry in Hanoi, AFP reports.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered the police to launch an investigation into alleged human trafficking activities.
“Any violations will be strictly dealt with,” Phuc said in a statement posted on the government website. He said he wanted reports on the case from authorities by Nov 5.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it had instructed its London embassy to assist British police with the identification of victims.
Source: AFP /Reuters
Oct. 27, 2019
Image : Vietnamese pray for relatives missing in UK / AFP
