Last Wednesday in Grays, southeastern England, 39 bodies were found in a truck container. Two brothers are wanted by police on the suspicion of human trafficking and manslaughter: Ronan Hughes, 40, and Christopher Hughes, 34, from Armagh in Northern Ireland.
The driver of the truck, Maurice Robinson, a Northern Irishman, appeared in court on Monday, having been charged with multiple offenses, including 39 counts of manslaughter.
While these bodies are still being identified and the police initially believed that the eight women and 31 men discovered were Chinese, a number of Vietnamese families have emerged, fearing that their loved ones are among the bodies found in the truck container.
Pham Thi Tra My, a Vietnamese 26-year-old, had sent her family a message on Tuesday night prior to the incident, saying that her “trip to a foreign land [had] failed.”
Examinations to establish the cause of death have begun at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford where all the bodies have been moved to.
Human trafficking and smuggling are world issues that most turn a blind eye to or simply aren’t aware of. However, stories like this tend to serve as a crude reminder that yes, people do risk their lives engaging in these activities on a daily basis.
What’s worse is how these cases are treated by the judicial court. For example, in 2004, 23 Chinese cockle pickers died at Morecambe Bay, and the gang master was caught and convicted. But, because the victims were all illegal migrants, their dependents received (and still have received) no compensation, meager charity, and endured crass harassment from debt collectors: consequently, their lives were made so much worse. Undoubtedly, this topic and its facets deserve more consideration and fair treatment.
Darlon Riviere - Staff Writer