Evading Detection, Racking Up Casualties
"We have arrested the lorry driver in connection with the incident who remains in police custody as our enquiries continue."
"This is a tragic incident where a large number of people have lost their lives. Our enquiries are ongoing to establish what has happened."
Essex Chief Superintendent Andrew Mariner
"[I am] 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 and their loved ones."
"We know that this trade is going on - all such traders in human beings should be hunted down and brought to justice."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
"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."
Jackie Doyle-Price, Conservative Member of Parliament
"Potential victims of human trafficking were reported from 130 different nationalities in 2018 [and] Albanian and Vietnamese nationals were the most commonly reported."
"[Victims are assigned to forced labour, in the sex industry and other fields]."
British National Crime Agency
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| Leon Neal / Getty Images The tractor part of this unit where 39 bodies were found Wednesday is felt to have originated in Northern Ireland |
Human trafficking and modern-day slavery are, unbelievably, on the rise world-wide. According to Britain's National Crime Agency, 6,993 victims of this crime had been referred to the government's program whose purpose is to identify and support victims, representing a 36 percent increase from 2017. Additionally, most fatal situations where victims of trafficking perished trapped inside shipping containers and trucks have been migrants, in recent years.
The bodies of 58 Chinese immigrants were discovered in June of 2000, in the back of a truck container in the port city of Dover, while in August of 2015, 71 bodies were found on a highway in Austria, trapped within a hermetically sealed and locked freezer truck. Most of those victims had come from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, at the peak of Europe's influx of refugees and migrants.
German public television and the Sued-deutsche Zeitung newspaper revealed afterward that Hungarian officials had tapped the phones of the traffickers, according to their research, but had failed to intervene in a timely manner that might have, if such intervention had occurred, saved those lives. The E.U. Law enforcement Agency (Europol), after the 2015 event, added a dedicated European Migrant Smuggling Centre to its law-and-order enterprise.
This year Europol published a report reflecting that the centre had discovered the most common method of smuggling relates to people being concealed in cars, or inside vans or trucks. Managing Director Rod McKenzie of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association explained that the journey for people in the truck from Bulgaria would have been "hellish". From photographs that emerged it was clear the truck was equipped with a refrigerated unit, with temperatures dipping as low as -25C.
This, in relation to one of Britain's largest murder investigations when 39 bodies were found within a tractor-trailer parked on an industrial estate in southeast England. The driver, a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland, is under arrest on suspicion of murder. The dead, comprised of 38 adults and a teenager, were discovered at Waterglade Industrial Park in the town of Grays, Essex, some 32 kilometres east of central London.
The truck was registered in Varna, Bulgaria, a port city on the coast of the Black Sea, to a company owner identified as an Irish woman. Since Bulgarian citizens as part of the European Union, and can travel freely to Britain, it was assumed originally that the truck occupants may have derived from elsewhere, confirmed when all the dead were identified as Chinese nationals. The truck had been driven from Belgium to a small town in Essex on the Thames.
Thirty-five minutes after the truck left Purfleet on Wednesday, police responded to an alert from local ambulance services who were at the container.
It was surmised by Mr. McKenzie of the Road Haulage Association that whoever sent the trailer through Essex might have favoured the route in avoidance of strict checks at the popular Calais, France crossing to Dover where authorities use sniffer dogs and monitors capable of detecting heartbeats, heat and C02 levels. "Purfleet, however, doesn't have that level of technology to screen lorries".
Labels: Britain, Criminal Offences, Death, Human Smuggling, Slavery
posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 25, 2019
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