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Pham Thi Tra My. Photo: Twitter

Essex truck deaths: woman Pham Thi Tra My and other Vietnamese feared to be among victims after trying to enter UK via China

  • Pham Thi Tra My sent text message to mother saying she could not breathe around time vehicle was en route from Belgium to Britain
  • 39 victims earlier identified as being from China, but could have been Vietnamese migrants using fake Chinese passports

Distraught Vietnamese families were seeking information about their missing loved ones last night amid growing fears that some of the 39 people who died in a refrigerated truck in Essex were from the country.

Pham Thi Tra My, 26, sent a text message to her mother saying she could not breathe at about the time the truck was en route from Belgium to Britain, said Hoa Nghiem from Human Rights Space, a civic network based in Vietnam.
“It was told on the news that all 39 people were Chinese but Tra My’s family is trying to verify if their daughter was among them as the last dying text from her was coincidentally in time,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Our contact is getting more alerts that there could be more Vietnamese people in the truck.”

Nghiem published a screenshot of Tra My’s text message, which indicated it was sent at 4.28am Vietnam time (10.28pm in the UK) on Wednesday.

The bodies were found in the truck container at an industrial estate near London around four hours later. It had arrived in Britain about an hour-and-a-half earlier, after being shipped from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

“I’m sorry Mom. My path to abroad does not succeed. Mom, I love you so much! I’m dying bcoz I cannot breath … I’m from Nghen, Can Loc, Ha Tinh, Vietnam … I am sorry, Mom,” the message said, according to Nghiem.

UK police start trafficking probe over death of 39 Chinese nationals

Several other families said that their loved ones had travelled via China to Europe, aiming to reach the UK, and that they had also been out of contact since early Wednesday morning, when the victims’ bodies were found in the trailer after being ferried from Belgium to Britain.

Some 24 hours after police had said that the victims were all believed to be Chinese, the heartbreaking Vietnamese accounts provided the first evidence of who may have been trapped in the trailer, contradicting earlier information. It is understood some of the missing Vietnamese people may have been travelling using false Chinese passports.

Pham Van Thin, the father of 26-year-old Pham Thi Tra My, sits inside his house in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam. Photo: STR/AFP

On Friday, Essex police backtracked on the initial claim, with deputy chief constable Pippa Mills telling reporters: “We gave an initial steer on Thursday on nationality. However, this is now a developing picture.” She said she would give no further information until a coroner approved formal identification processes.

In Vietnam, families responded to press reports of the identification of the victims as Chinese by taking to social media and contacting the country’s embassy in Britain with requests for help. It is believed that there are at least six families who fear their loved ones could have died in the container.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, was also feared to be among the 39 victims.

Three of the families, all with missing sons – one born in 2004 – had been sent word that their loved ones would soon arrive in Britain.

“They said they received information that their family members were about to reach the UK on 23 October, that they should be prepared to pay. But then the contact disappeared,” Nghiem said.

It was also reported that two other Vietnamese families have relatives missing: a 26-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman.

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The 19-year-old’s brother told the BBC she called him early on Tuesday to say she was getting into a container and would be switching her phone off to avoid detection. They had not heard from her since and the people smugglers had since returned money to the family.

Relatives of the 26-year-old, with whom she was travelling, had also been given some money back.

The BBC later reported that Pham’s family had to pay £30,000 to traffickers for her journey to the UK. A family acquaintance confirmed to The Guardian that Pham’s family had to remortgage their home to pay the sum.

A general view of the house of 26-year-old Vietnamese woman Pham Thi Tra My. Photo: STR/AFP

VietHome, an organisation for the Vietnamese community, said it had received news from 10 families that their loved ones were missing. Hanoi’s London embassy was coordinating with British police, the official Vietnam News Agency reported.

A spokesman for the embassy said on Friday that it had been contacted by a family in Vietnam who claimed their daughter had been missing “since the truck was found”. The spokesman said: “We have contacted Essex police and we are waiting for an answer.”

Trafficked migrants are rarely on any kind of formal manifesto and victims’ families may in some cases be in danger themselves if they acknowledge their disappearance. They may also fear that by going public they will put their loved one at risk of arrest if they are in fact still alive.

People in London hold a candlelight vigil on Thursday for the victims found dead in a truck container in Essex. Photo: EPA-EFE

Essex police urged anyone who thinks their friends or relatives may have been in the trailer to contact them – even individuals who may be “living illegally in this country”.

“Please come forward and speak to us without fear,” Mills said. “I can assure you that your information will be received in strictest confidence and no criminal action will be taken against you.”

Mimi Vu, a leading expert on trafficking of Vietnamese young people to Europe and Britain, said the texts appeared to be authentic.

Lorry horror highlights risks migrants take to reach UK

“She writes her name and where she is from, which is very important, to tell people where she should be buried. It is important for the body to be returned to the place of birth,” said Vu, who has been working in Vietnam on trafficking and slavery issues for the past seven years.

She noted that occasionally people were given false Chinese passports, if they were trafficked through China, which could lead to confusion.

Following Pham’s disappearance, her brother posted a message on a forum regularly used by Vietnamese people looking for missing relatives. He wrote that Pham, who lived in the Nghen township in Can Loc district, left the rural province of Ha Tinh in northern Vietnam on October 3 before travelling to the capital, Hanoi, to “finalise her papers to go China”.

Flowers are seen on Thursday at the scene where bodies were discovered in a truck container, in Grays, Essex. Photo: Reuters

She then flew to France and on to Britain, he said. However, she was allegedly arrested on arrival in the UK before being sent back to France.

In the post, her brother added: “She was arrested a few days ago by UK police and they returned her to France. Now we heard that she might have died. I am posting to ask for her whereabouts and if you tell me your projection about her situation.”

Nghiem said she had spoken with a lawyer who was trying to help the family.

She said: “The girl’s family got in touch with the lawyer – who has dealt with cases like this before – asking if she could help. They are desperate for any information about their daughter.”

Fourth suspect arrested in British truck deaths case

The investigation into the deaths proceeded rapidly on Friday with three new arrests in Britain and details emerging of security processes at the Belgian port where the trailer began the final leg of its journey.

The 25-year-old driver of the truck, Mo Robinson, remains in custody.

The victims – 31 men and eight women – are being moved to a hospital mortuary from a secure location at docks near the industrial estate in Grays about 30km (19 miles) east of London, where the bodies were found.

Postmortem examinations were beginning to determine how exactly they died, while forensic experts sought to identify the deceased.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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