This archive report was first published on 26 October 2019.
Published on October 26, 2019, a truck tragedy in Britain has left at least 39 people dead, with fears that up to 20 of the victims may be Vietnamese citizens.
Initial reports from British police suggested that all 31 men and eight women found in the refrigerated lorry in an industrial park in Grays, east of London, were Chinese nationals.
However, several Vietnamese families now fear their relatives may be among the victims, who may have been carrying falsified Chinese passports.
Britain-based community group VietHome said it had received photos of nearly 20 people reported missing from Vietnam, a popular source for smuggled migrants looking to better their lives in the UK.
Nguyen Dinh Gia, a father from Vietnam, received a call from his son two weeks ago saying he was planning to go to Britain to work in a nail salon. The journey would cost 11,000 pounds ($14,000).
But Gia received a call several days ago from a Vietnamese man saying 'Please have some sympathy, something unexpected happened.'
"I fell to the ground when I heard that," Gia said. "It seemed that he was in the truck with the accident, all of them dead," he added.
A 26-year-old Vietnamese woman, Pham Thi Tra My, is also believed to be among the victims after her family received a text message from her hours before the migrants were discovered.
"I'm sorry Mom. My path to abroad doesn't succeed. Mom, I love you so much! I'm dying because I can't breathe," she said in the message confirmed by her brother Pham Manh Cuong.
The truck carrying the migrants arrived in Purfleet on the River Thames estuary on a ferry from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge just over an hour before ambulance crews called the police at 1.40 am.
The driver, a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland, was arrested at the scene.
A married couple were 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.
"It's nothing to do with us now," said one of the accused, Joanna Maher, as quoted by The Times.
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.
