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Global Trafficking Networks Behind British Migrant Tragedy

Henry Ridgwell

   LONDON - British and Belgian police are continuing their investigations
   into the people-smuggling networks that transported 39 migrants who
   were found dead in the back of a refrigerated truck near London on
   October 23.

   Suffocation is the suspected cause of the migrants' deaths in the
   sealed container. Many of the victims are believed to be Vietnamese and
   appeared to have traveled across the border to China and into Russia
   and Europe, before crossing the English Channel from the Belgian port
   of Zeebrugge to Purfleet on the River Thames.

   The truck was reportedly registered in Bulgaria. The driver,
   25-year-old Maurice Robinson from Northern Ireland, has been charged
   with manslaughter, people trafficking and money laundering.

   Police are seeking two brothers in the deaths -- 40-year-old Ronan
   Hughes and 34-year-old Christopher Hughes, also from Northern Ireland.

   The migrants' journey reportedly began 9,000 kilometers away in the
   remote Nghe An and Hanoi provinces in northern Vietnam.

   On the doorstep of a family home in the village of Ha Tinh, Bui Phan
   Chinh comforted his grandson as they waited for further news. Chinh
   believes his son, -- the boy's father, Bui Phan Thang -- was among the
   victims.

   "Many people in this village have gone abroad to work, so my son wanted
   to go abroad like others to earn money," Chinh explained. "No one could
   imagine that he ended his life there forever, leaving behind his wife
   and the young kids."

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