DUBLIN – As many as 14 immigrants who were stowed inside a chilly refrigerated container were surprisingly found alive when the container arrived at a port in Ireland.
The incident happened earlier this week when the law enforcers came to know of a container that arrived at Rosslare Europort from Belgium; the temperature inside the container was as low as -4 degrees.
The immigrants were discovered at around 3 am when the lorry was stopped exiting the ferry and as per an Irish police statement, a Kurdish woman in the container had made a call to the UK coast guard after which the information was passed on to the Irish authorities.
Though the investigations are underway, authorities believe that the immigrants had possibly spent as long as 24 hours shut inside the container; some say they were headed to England though no concrete information is available as of now.
The immigrants – including two girls aged six and four – had been struggling to breathe and had cut a hole in the container.
Fortunately, all 14 people were reported to be in good health. As far as the identity of the individuals is concerned, most of them were Kurds from Iran and Iraq, with three people from Vietnam and one from Turkey.
Commenting on the incident, former president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, Eugene Drennan said a professional human trafficking gang was behind the episode.
“The truck was fully sealed… it had to be some people who knew how to manipulate the locks and seals,” he told the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ.
As far as the fate of the immigrants is concerned, Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar said they may choose to apply for asylum or leave out of free will, adding that an effort would be made to process any asylum claims as quickly as possible.
