LONDON — British police launched a murder investigation on Wednesday after 39 bodies were found inside a tractor-trailer on an industrial estate in southeast England.
Essex Police said that a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland had been arrested on suspicion of murder. The bodies were found at Waterglade Industrial Park in the Essex town of Grays, about 25 miles east of central London.
Police said that they received a call around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday from the ambulance services. The victims, pronounced dead at the scene, included 38 adults and one teenager.
The police believe the truck was from Bulgaria and entered the country on Saturday via Holyhead in North Wales. Holyhead is one of the busiest ports for ferries from Ireland.
“We have arrested the lorry driver in connection with the incident who remains in police custody as our enquiries continue,” Chief Superintendent Andrew Mariner said in the statement. “This is a tragic incident where a large number of people have lost their lives. Our enquiries are ongoing to establish what has happened.”
Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills said that the police have not yet identified the victims or where they are from, adding it could be a “lengthy process.” When asked by reporters how the truck had entered Ireland, she said that establishing the truck’s movements was a key line of inquiry.
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AP
An aerial view as forensic officers attend the scene after a truck was found to contain a large number of dead bodies, Oct. 23, 2019.
Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, said he was “appalled by this tragic incident in Essex.”
“I am receiving regular updates and the Home Office will work closely with Essex Police as we establish exactly what has happened. My thoughts are with all those who lost their lives & their loved ones,” he tweeted.
Jackie Doyle-Price, a Conservative lawmaker, told Parliament: “Sadly, this is not the first time that we have found people in metal containers in my constituency. We’re really sorry to say it’s all too regular an occurrence and it was only a matter of time before that would end in tragedy.”
“This is now a multinational problem that we need to fix,” she added.
In a statement read out in Parliament, Britain’s home secretary Priti Patel called it a “truly shocking incident.”
British authorities say human trafficking and modern-day slavery are on the rise. The National Crime Agency figures show that last year 6,993 potential victims were referred to the government’s program that aims to identify and support victims — a 36 percent increase from 2017. The agency states, “potential victims of human trafficking were reported from 130 different nationalities in 2018 [and] Albanian and Vietnamese nationals were the most commonly reported.” The victims are used as forced labor, in the sex industry and other work.
Ben Stansall
Afp Via Getty Images
British Police forensic officers work by a truck containing 39 dead bodies, discovered east of London, on October 23, 2019.
Even though Essex police said the container was from Bulgaria, they did not specifically identify the victims as migrants.
Most fatal incidents in which victims died inside shipping containers in recent years have involved migrants, however.
In June 2000, the bodies of 58 Chinese immigrants were found in the back of a truck container in English port city of Dover. The following year a Dutch driver was sentenced to 14 years in jail for manslaughter. The immigrants, who paid a smuggling gang $26,000, suffocated to death after the driver closed the air vent on the truck during a five-hour ferry ride across the English Channel.
In August 2015, 71 bodies were found on a highway in Austria, inside a hermetically sealed and locked freezer truck. Most victims were from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The discovery came at the peak of Europe’s refugee influx and became one of its defining, tragic moments.
Research by German public television and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper later revealed that Hungarian officials had tapped the traffickers’ phones, but failed to intervene on time.
Four human traffickers were jailed for life over their involvement in the 2015 incident this summer.
Noack reported from Berlin. William Booth in London contributed to this report.
Read more:
Immigration worries drove the Brexit vote. Then attitudes changed.
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2019-10-23 12:47:00Z
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