LONDON - The 39 people found dead in the
back of a refrigerated truck near London are believed to be
Chinese nationals, British police said on Thursday.
Following are the facts so far:
BODIES FOUND
Police were called by the ambulance service at 1.40am (0040 GMT) on Wednesday to the Waterglade Industrial Park on
Eastern Avenue in Grays, in the southern English county of
Essex. They found 39 bodies in the refrigerated container of a
truck.
The truck has since been taken from the industrial park to a
secure site to allow police to remove the bodies.
WHO ARE THE DECEASED?
Police said all were Chinese: 31 are men and eight are
women, one of them a young adult.
"Each of the 39 people must undergo a full coroner’s process
to establish a cause of death before we move on to attempting to
identify each individual within the trailer," British police
said in a statement, adding it would be a substantial operation.
WHERE DID THE CONTAINER COME FROM?
The container trailer travelled from the Belgian port of
Zeebrugge and arrived in the English port of Purfleet at around
00.30am on Oct. 23.
The cab unit, which had "Ireland" emblazoned on the
windscreen along with the message "The Ultimate Dream", entered
Britain via Holyhead in north Wales on Oct. 20 from Dublin. The
truck was registered in Bulgaria in 2017.
The cab with the trailer left Purfleet shortly after 1.05am Police were called 35 minutes later.
It is not yet clear where the container came from before it
entered the port of Zeebrugge or when the people inside died.
WHO HAS BEEN ARRESTED?
A 25-year-old lorry driver from Northern Ireland was
arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody.
A source familiar with the investigation said he was Mo
Robinson from the Portadown area in the British province of
Northern Ireland.