The 39 people found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex were all believed to be Chinese nationals, Essex Police have said.
It is understood that there were 31 men and eight women discovered in the refrigerated lorry trailer in Grays, Essex, on Wednesday. One is a young adult woman, previously reported to have been a teenager.
The information comes as police searched two addresses in Northern Ireland and officers continue to question a Co Armagh man over the discovery.
The searches in Co Armagh on Wednesday night [October 23, 2019] are believed to be linked to the arrest of the driver, named in reports as 25-year-old Mo Robinson, from Portadown.
He remains in custody for questioning by Essex Police on suspicion of murder. Robinson had posted images on social media of the bright red cab, proudly calling it “the Polar Express.”
Councillor Paul Berry said the village of Laurelvale, where the Robinson family live, was in “complete shock”.
Berry, who has been in contact with Robinson’s father several times, said he learned of his son’s arrest through social media.
“He had said he had been getting messages via people on social media on what was happening and at that stage it was not confirmed to him or his family that his son had been arrested,” said the independent representative.
“In the local area the feeling is one of complete shock and hope this is not a true story in terms of his involvement.”
Berry, who knows the father well, said the family were “very well respected” in the area.
“The local community is hoping that he (Mo Robinson) has been caught up innocently in this matter but that’s in the hands of Essex Police, and we will leave it in their professional hands to try to catch the perpetrators of this.”
He said the family had been left upset by the “unwelcome spotlight” the incident had shone on them.
“It was very distressing for the family as they just felt they were captive in their own home,” he said.
The bodies of 58 Chinese people were found in a container at Dover, Kent, in 2000. In 2015, a lorry was found on an Austrian motorway with the decomposing bodies of 71 people, including a baby girl, inside.
Detectives have said the trailer containing the victims arrived at Purfleet from Zeebrugge in Belgium at around 12.30am on Wednesday and the front section to which it was attached, known as the tractor, came from Northern Ireland.
The lorry and trailer left the port at Purfleet shortly after 1.05am and officers were called around 30 minutes later after ambulance staff made the grim discovery at Waterglade Industrial Park in Eastern Avenue in nearby Grays.
Road Haulage Association chief executive Richard Burnett had earlier described the conditions for anyone inside a refrigerated unit such as this as “absolutely horrendous.”
Temperatures in such units can be as low as -25C if frozen products are being transported, causing humans to “lose their lives pretty quickly”, he said.
He went on: “It’s going to be dark. If the fridge is running it’s going to be incredibly cold.
“The only place to go to the toilet is on board the back of the trailer. You can imagine if they’ve been in there for days then there will be faeces, there will be urine.”
Thermal imaging cameras used at ports are unable to detect people in refrigeration trailers and according to AP, such vehicles often move swiftly through Zeegrugge, usually with just a visual check, for the short crossing to England.
Eric Van Duyse, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, said that Brussels had started an investigation into the incident.
He added: “We have no idea at the moment how long the lorry spent in Belgium, it could be hours or days, we just don’t know.”
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