Essex lorry deaths: Majority of victims likely to be Vietnamese, community leader claims

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Luke O'Reilly26 October 2019
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A majority of the 39 people found dead in a lorry in Essex are likely to be Vietnamese, a community leader from the country has claimed.

Father Anthony Dang Huu Nam, a Catholic priest in the town of Yen Thanh - a ​rural, rice-growing community where many of the victims are believed to have come from - told Reuters families knew relatives were travelling to the UK at the time and had been unable to contact their loved ones ever since.

He said on Saturday: "The whole district is covered in sorrow.

"I'm still collecting contact details for all the victim's families, and will hold a ceremony to pray for them tonight.

"This is a catastrophe for our community."

Essex Police initially said all of the people found in the lorry on Wednesday were Chinese nationals, but the force said at a press conference on Friday that "this is now a developing picture".

Four people have been arrested in connection with the deaths.

Another suspected victim from Ha Tinh, 26-year-old Pham Thi Tra My, had sent a text message to her mother saying she could not breathe at about the time the truck container was en route from Belgium to Britain.

Her relatives told the BBC they have not been able to contact her since she sent a text on Tuesday night saying she was suffocating.

"I am really, really sorry, Mum and Dad, my trip to a foreign land has failed," she wrote.

"I am dying, I can't breathe. I love you very much Mum and Dad. I am sorry, Mother."

Pham Thi Tra My

Her family said they had paid £30,000 for her to be smuggled into Britain, which has now been repaid.

Fr Nam said: "That girl who said in her message that she couldn't breathe in the truck? Her parents can't breathe here at home."

In Yen Thanh, Nghe An province, dozens of relatives of 19-year-old Bui Thi Nhung gathered in the family's small courtyard home where her worried mother has been unable to rise from her bed.

"She said she was in France and on the way to the UK, where she has friends and relatives," said cousin Hoang Thi Linh.

"We are waiting and hoping it's not her among the victims, but it's very likely. We pray for her everyday. There were two people from my village travelling in that group".

In comments under a photo uploaded to Ms Nhung's Facebook account on Monday, two days before the doomed truck was discovered, one friend asked how her journey was going.

"Not good," Nhung replied. "Almost spring," she said, using a term in Vietnamese meaning she had almost reached her destination.

Other photos on her account show her sightseeing in Brussels on Friday last week. "Such a beautiful day," she posted.

Nghe An is one of Vietnam's poorest provinces, and home to many victims of human trafficking who end up in Europe, according to a March report by the Pacific Links Foundation, a US-based anti-trafficking organisation.

Other victims are believed to come from the neighbouring province of Ha Tinh, Fr Nam said, where in the first eight months of this year, 41,790 people left looking for work elsewhere, including overseas, according to state media.

The province was ravaged by one of Vietnam's worst environmental disasters in 2016 when a steel mill owned by Taiwan's Formosa Plastics contaminated coastal waters, devastating local fishing and tourism industries and sparking widespread protests.

Additional reporting by Reuters.

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