UK truck deaths: families of missing Vietnamese migrants stuck with crippling debt

Parents borrowed thousands of dollars to pay for children’s flights, fake passports and truck rides

British police seek two Northern Irish brothers on suspicion of manslaughter and human trafficking

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Nguyen Dinh Gia (right), father of Nguyen Dinh Luong, one of the suspected truck death victims, is embraced by a friend at his home in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam, on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:30am, 30 Oct 2019Updated: 12:46pm, 30 Oct 2019

They borrowed thousands of dollars to fund their children’s illegal trips to Europe, and now the Vietnamese parents of missing migrants feared dead in Britain have no idea how to pay off the crippling loans.

Their children planned to send back money after getting hoped-for jobs in the UK, where 39 people were found dead in a truck last week. The driver has been charged, and British police said on Tuesday they were looking for two more suspects believed to be connected to the case.

Families in central Vietnam think their loved ones might have been in the refrigerated container, leaving behind mountains of debt borrowed from relatives or credit unions.

The money was handed over to smugglers for flights, fake passports and truck rides into Europe, a prime destination for migrants escaping remote villages and dreaming of better lives abroad.

Some of their children were already working in Europe, sending hundreds of dollars back every month to families in an impoverished part of Vietnam where most people are farmers, fishermen or factory workers.

“We still owe nearly US$8,600,” said Nguyen Dinh Gia, who believes his son Nguyen Dinh Luong was in the truck found in the industrial outskirts of London.