GRAYS, United Kingdom: British police said on Thursday that 39 people found dead in a truck near London were all believed to be Chinese nationals, as officers conduct the country’s largest murder probe in more than a decade.
Emergency workers made the grisly discovery on early Wednesday inside the refrigerated container of a truck parked in an industrial area east of London, shortly after it had arrived on a ferry from Belgium.
The case has triggered shock and outrage in Britain, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson describing it as an “unimaginable tragedy.”
The local police force said in a statement that eight of the dead were women and 31 were men.
“All are believed to be Chinese nationals,” Essex Police said.
China’s foreign ministry said its embassy staff in London were heading to the scene “to verify this situation.”
The grim discovery has drawn attention to the shadowy people trafficking business and efforts to stem the flow of illegal migrants to Britain.
Police also confirmed that officers had searched three properties in Northern Ireland overnight in connection with the investigation.
The addresses are believed to be linked to the truck driver, a 25-year-old man from the province, who was arrested at the scene in Grays, east of London.
“We arrested a man on suspicion of murder, who remains in custody,” police said, adding that they were not identifying him.
Police said a coroner would try to establish the cause of death of the 39 victims, before investigators then attempt to identify each individual.
“This will be a substantial operation and, at this stage, we cannot estimate how long these procedures will take,” Essex Police said.
With the help of immigration officials and the National Crime Agency (NCA), Essex Police are leading biggest murder probe in Britain since the 2005 terror attacks in London that killed 52 people.
Forensic investigators could be seen working by the truck throughout Wednesday.
Police said it was later moved to a “secure location” at the nearby Tilbury docks, “to give the utmost dignity to those within the trailer as we prepare for a coroner’s post-mortem examination.”
The container section came by ferry from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge into Purfleet on the River Thames estuary — a crossing that takes nine to 12 hours.
The vessel docked there at around 12:30 am Wednesday (2330 GMT Tuesday) and the truck left the port area about half an hour later.
Emergency services were then called to the Waterglade Industrial Park at around 1:40 am.
Prosecutors in Belgium have launched their own probe and confirmed Thursday that the container had passed through Zeebrugge, one of the world’s biggest and busiest ports, on Tuesday.
“It is not yet clear when the victims were placed in the container and whether this happened in Belgium,” the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said.
It added that its investigation “will focus on the organizers of and all other parties involved” and be carried out in close cooperation with Britain.
Essex Police revealed the tractor unit of the truck entered Britain on Sunday on a ferry from Dublin to the Welsh port of Holyhead.
They had earlier said they believed the tractor originated in Northern Ireland.
The vehicle had license plates issued in Bulgaria after it was registered there in 2017 by an Irish citizen, according to Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.
He said the unit had not entered Bulgarian territory since and there was “no connection with us.”
In another incident on Wednesday, police in Kent, a county in southeast England, said they had discovered nine people stowed away in the back of another truck, after stopping the vehicle on a motorway.
After precautionary medical checks, they were passed to immigration officials.
The NCA said the number of migrants being smuggled into Britain in containers and trucks had risen in the last year.
In May, the agency warned there had been “increasing use of higher risk methods of clandestine entry” to Britain by organized immigration crime gangs.
The latest deaths drew comparisons to previous cases in Britain and continental Europe.
In 2000, the bodies of 58 clandestine Chinese immigrants were discovered in a Dutch truck in the English port of Dover. Two people survived.
In August 2015, at the peak of Europe’s migration crisis, the bodies of 71 migrants including a baby girl were found piled up in the back of a poultry refrigerator lorry left in Austria.
UK police say 39 found dead in truck were Chinese
UK police say 39 found dead in truck were Chinese
- The local police force said in a statement that eight of the dead were women and 31 were men
- The grim discovery has drawn attention to the shadowy people trafficking business and efforts to stem the flow of illegal migrants to Britain
Muslim group issues UK Labour Party leader with demands over Gaza
- Muslim Vote group calls for ‘real action’ to regain trust
- Support for Labour in recent local elections fell in areas with high Muslim populations
LONDON: Pro-Palestinian activists have presented a list of 18 demands to the leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party and said they will not vote for the party at the next general election if he does not fulfill them.
The Muslim Vote, a campaign to get Muslim voters to back pro-Palestine candidates, has called for Sir Keir Starmer to promise to cut military ties with Israel, implement a travel ban on Israeli politicians involved in the war in Gaza and impose sanctions on companies operating in occupied territories.
The group told Starmer he must commit to “real action” and deliver on its requests if he was “serious” about his pledge to rebuild trust with those angered by his stance on the conflict in Gaza, The Telegraph reported.
Supporters would vote for the Green Party or Liberal Democrats if he could not commit to their demands, it said.
Labour’s campaign chief Pat McFadden acknowledged that Starmer’s approach to the conflict had cost the party votes at last week’s local elections. Support for Labour dropped dramatically in areas with a high Muslim populations, including Oldham in Greater Manchester, where the party lost overall control of the council in a shock defeat.
After the result, Starmer said he was determined to regain the trust of those who abandoned Labour as a result of his stance on the Gaza war but did not make any concrete pledges on the matter.
The Muslim Vote challenged Starmer with committing to the 18 demands and implementing them should be become the next prime minister.
They include removing the definition of extremism introduced by Secretary of State for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove and issuing guidance that allows Muslims to pray at school.
Philippines rules out use of water cannon in disputed South China Sea
- Philippines and China have clashed several times in disputed, resource-rich waterway
- Latest skirmish took place late last month, in an incident Manila describes as dangerous
MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that Manila will not use offensive equipment in the disputed South China Sea, after China’s coast guard used high-pressure water cannon on Philippine vessels last week.
The Philippines and China have had several confrontations in the resource-rich area, where Beijing has used water cannon against Filipino vessels in incidents Manila has described as harassment and dangerous.
The latest in a string of maritime clashes occurred on April 30 as tensions continued to rise in the vital waterway that Beijing claims almost in its entirety despite a 2016 international arbitration ruling that rejected its assertion.
“What we are doing is defending our sovereign rights and our sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea. And we have no intention of attacking anyone with water cannons or any other such offensive (weapons),” Marcos said Monday.
“We will not follow the Chinese coast guard and the Chinese vessels down that road because it is not the mission of the navy (or) our coast guard to start or to increase tensions … Their mission is precisely the opposite, it’s to lower tensions.”
Philippine vessels have been regularly targeted by Chinese ships in areas of the South China Sea that are internationally recognized as belonging to the Philippines, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.
The Philippines’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs last Thursday summoned Zhou Zhiyong, China’s deputy chief of mission, after the incident left a Philippine coast guard vessel and another government boat damaged.
It was the 20th protest Manila has made against Beijing’s conduct in the South China Sea this year alone, while more than 150 diplomatic complaints have been made over the past two years.
Marcos said the Philippines will continue to respond to South China Sea incidents through diplomatic means.
Marcos’s statement comes days after the defense ministers of the Philippines, the US, Japan and Australia met in Hawaii and issued a joint statement on their strong objections to the “dangerous and destabilizing conduct” of China in the South China Sea.
UK considered Rwanda-style asylum deal with Iraq
- Documents seen by Sky News reveal London has struck returns agreement with Baghdad
- They also suggest a desire to improve relations with Iran to return people to the country
LONDON: The UK considered sending asylum-seekers to Iraq for processing, new documents have shown.
Iraq is considered very dangerous, with the UK government advising against all travel to the country.
But a plan similar to the Rwanda scheme to process migrants in a third-party country was floated at one stage by Whitehall officials, with negotiations said to have achieved “good recent progress.”
The UK has struck a returns agreement with Baghdad for Iraqi citizens, which was achieved without a formal announcement or acknowledgement and a plea for “discretion,” the documents, seen by Sky News, suggest.
The cache of papers casts new light on the UK government’s approach to dealing with asylum-seekers and illegal migration, including a desire to improve relations with the Iranian Embassy in London in order to ease the repatriation of Iranian citizens, and moves to establish return agreements with Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Biden meets Jordan’s King Abdullah as Gaza ceasefire hopes dim
- Monday’s meeting between two leaders is not a formal bilateral meeting but an informal private meeting
- US president Biden faces increasing pressure politically to convince Israel to hold off on an invasion
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden will meet Middle East ally, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, at the White House on Monday with prospects for a Gaza ceasefire appearing slim and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israeli officials blaming each other for the impasse.
On Sunday, Hamas reiterated its demand for an end to the war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly ruled that out. Hamas also attacked the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza that Israel said killed three of its soldiers.
A Jordanian diplomat said Monday’s meeting between Biden and King Abdullah is not a formal bilateral meeting but an informal private meeting. It comes as the Biden administration and Israeli officials remain at odds over Israel’s planned military incursion in Rafah.
Biden last met King Abdullah at the White House in February and the two longtime allies discussed a daunting list of challenges, including a looming Israeli ground offensive in southern Gaza and the threat of a humanitarian calamity among Palestinian civilians. Jordan and other Arab states have been highly critical of Israel’s actions and have been demanding a ceasefire since mid-October as civilian casualties began to skyrocket. The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
Biden last spoke to Netanyahu on April 28 and “reiterated his clear position” on a possible invasion of the Gaza border city of Rafah, the White House said. The US president has been vocal in his demand that Israel not undertake a ground offensive in Rafah without a plan to protect Palestinian civilians.
With pro-Palestinian protests erupting across US college campuses, Biden faces increasing pressure politically to convince Israel to hold off on an invasion. Biden addressed the campus unrest over the war in Gaza last week but said the campus protests had not forced him to reconsider his policies in the Middle East.
Russia’s president Putin orders nuclear drills with troops near Ukraine
- Putin has upped his nuclear rhetoric since the Ukraine conflict began, warning in his address to the nation in February there was a ‘real’ risk of nuclear war
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to hold nuclear weapons drills involving the navy and troops based near Ukraine, the defense ministry said Monday.
Putin has upped his nuclear rhetoric since the Ukraine conflict began, warning in his address to the nation in February there was a “real” risk of nuclear war.
“During the exercise, a set of measures will be taken to practice the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the defense ministry said.
Non-strategic nuclear weapons, also known as tactical nuclear weapons, are designed for use on the battlefield and can be delivered via missiles.
The ministry said the exercises would take place “in the near future” and were aimed at ensuring Russia’s territorial integrity in the face of “threats by certain Western officials.”
Aircraft and naval forces will take part, as well as troops from the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine and includes the occupied Ukrainian territories, it said.
Western officials have become increasingly alarmed by the Kremlin’s nuclear rhetoric during the offensive in Ukraine, with Putin frequently invoking Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
Last year Russia ditched its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and pulled out of a key arms reduction agreement with the United States.
