Vietnamese risking it all

[reader]

A few Vietnam guys who work in bkk tell me they fear that there are more than two from their country who may be among the dead in the horrific trailer tragedy unfolding in the UK. 

From the BBC

An hour's drive inland from the French coast, a dozen Vietnamese men nurse tea over a smoking campfire, as they wait for a phone call from the man they call "the boss". An Afghan man, they say, who opens trailers in the lorry-park nearby and shuts them inside.

Duc paid €30,000 ($33,200; £25,000) for a prepaid journey from Vietnam to London - via Russia, Poland, Germany and France. It was organised, he says, by a Vietnamese contact back home.

"I have some Vietnamese friends in UK, who will help me find jobs when I get there," he told me. "These friends help me get on lorries or container trucks to go across the border."

Security is much less tight in the nearby lorry park than around the ports further north. But few people here have managed to get past the border controls.

We were told there is a two-tier system in operation here; that those who pay more for their passage to Britain don't have to chance their luck in the lorries outside, but use this base as a transit camp before being escorted on the final leg of their journey.

Duc tells me he needs a job in the UK to pay back the loan for his journey.

"We can do anything," he says, "construction work, nail bars, restaurants or other jobs."

A report by one of France's biggest charities described smugglers telling Vietnamese migrants that refrigerated lorries gave them more chance of avoiding detection, and giving each of them an aluminium bag to put over their heads while passing through scanners at the border.

No one here had heard about the 39 people found dead this week.

This journey is about freedom, one said.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50190199

[TotallyOz]

This does tell you how much the people from that area want a better life and different choices. It is heartbreaking for this story to unfold.

[PeterRS]

This is a ghastly event, yet it is not the first time that people have died in the back of airless containers as they desperately tried to get into the UK. Its appalling to think that some families and loved ones coughed up around $40,000 to make the trip from Vietnam and are now may be in debt for years. There are reports that some of the traffickers are repaying families those costs. Fat lot of use that will be to families of have lost their young sons and daughters, and to the young wives and children left behind. We can only hope that a tragedy such as this will prevent others from trying to do the same. Unlikely, I fear.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, PeterRS said:

This is a ghastly event, yet it is not the first time that people have died in the back of airless containers as they desperately tried to get into the UK.

It's astonishing that they pay such large sums of money to come here ILLEGALLY.       If they get here, they cannot work legally.    Furthermore, the law requires any landlords to check the ID documents of any tenants to ensure they are legally in the country.    So they cannot rent accommodation from any reputable landlord.     

The UK really needs to have a close look at why people are so desperate to come here illegally.     In some cases, risking their lives to cross from France, which is a comparable country.     We are doing something wrong.    Once we figure it out, take steps to inform & educate people.

Finally, how can truck loads of people enter the country undetected ?      Had they survived, no doubt the Vietnamese (and others) would have worked hard and been just the kind of people we need here.   However, when there are millions of Taliban sympathizers out there, who are exactly the type of people we don't want here, I would hope that our borders would be more secure.

 

[vinapu]

13 minutes ago, z909 said:

      If they get here, they cannot work legally.    Furthermore, the law requires any landlords to check the ID documents of any tenants to ensure they are legally in the country.    So they cannot rent accommodation from any reputable landlord.     

 

then they will work illegally, with diligence and good luck it may last on for years.

The same with landlords - not all of them are reputable  and some may look only for money knowing that illegals will rarely complain. Or well established guy will rent it under his name and let others to live there

In many  cases those illegals have access to good supporting network and their only problem  is how to get there

[reader]

From CNN

Police believe all 39 victims found inside Essex truck were Vietnamese

CNN)The 39 people found dead in the back in the back of a truck in Englandlast month are believed to be Vietnamese nationals, Essex Police said in a statement Friday.

"At this time, we believe the victims are Vietnamese nationals, and we are in contact with the Vietnamese Government," Assistant Chief Constable Tim Smith said in the statement.

He added that police were in "direct contact with a number of families in Vietnam and the UK, and we believe we have identified families for some of the victims whose journey ended in tragedy on our shores."

The development comes a week after 39 people were found dead in the back of a refrigerated lorry in a UK industrial park in Grays, Essex, 20 miles east of London.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/01/uk/essex-truck-deaths-arrests-vietnam-gbr-intl/index.html

[alex303]

On ‎10‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:23 PM, z909 said:

It's astonishing that they pay such large sums of money to come here ILLEGALLY.       If they get here, they cannot work legally.    Furthermore, the law requires any landlords to check the ID documents of any tenants to ensure they are legally in the country.    So they cannot rent accommodation from any reputable landlord.     

The UK really needs to have a close look at why people are so desperate to come here illegally.     In some cases, risking their lives to cross from France, which is a comparable country.     We are doing something wrong.    Once we figure it out, take steps to inform & educate people.

Finally, how can truck loads of people enter the country undetected ?      Had they survived, no doubt the Vietnamese (and others) would have worked hard and been just the kind of people we need here.   However, when there are millions of Taliban sympathizers out there, who are exactly the type of people we don't want here, I would hope that our borders would be more secure.

 

From what I have read & heard I don't think a lot of them paid up front...often a case of a debt that then has to be worked off, in many cases it leads to them being taken advantage of in the UK and treated like indentured labour (at best).

In terms of how they get through it appears the use of refrigerated trucks by the people smugglers is a VERY dangerous attempt to try hide them from the body heat scanners they have at the ports to scan trucks, also that port they came through handles commercial / cargo primarily as far as I know.

Anyone who preys on people to that extent must have a very very dark soul that's all I can say.

[reader]

Excerpted from MSN

Ten teenagers were among the 39 people found dead in a refrigerated trailer in Essex last month, police have confirmed.

Essex Police on Friday released the names of the 31 men and eight women whose bodies were found in an industrial park in Grays on 23 October, after confirming on Thursday they were all Vietnamese.

Pham Thi Tra My, 26-year-old woman from Ha Tinh

Nguyen Dinh Lurong, 20-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Nguyen Huy Phong, 35-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Vo Nhan Du, 19-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Tran Manh Hung, 37-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Tran Khanh Tho, 18-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Vo Van Linh, 25-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Nguyen Van Nhan, 33-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Bui Phan Thang, 37-year-old man from Ha Tinh

Nguyen Huy Hung, 15-year-old boy from Ha Tinh

Tran Thi Tho, 21-year-old woman from Nghe An

Bui Thi Nhung, 19-year-old woman from Nghe An

Vo Ngoc Nam, 28-year-old man from Nghe An

Nguyen Dinh Tu, 26-year-old man from Nghe An

Le Van Ha, 30-year-old man from Nghe An

Tran Thi Ngoc, 19-year-old woman from Nghe An

Nguyen Van Hung, 33-year-old man from Nghe An

Hoang Van Tiep, 18-year-old man from Nghe An

Cao Tien Dung, 37-year-old man from Nghe An

Cao Huy Thanh, 33-year-old man from Nghe An

Tran Thi Mai Nhung, 18-year-old woman from Nghe An

Nguyen Minh Quang, 20-year-old man from Nghe An

Le Trong Thanh, 44-year-old man from Dien Chau

Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, 28-year-old woman from Nghe An

Hoang Van Hoi, 24-year-old man from Nghe An

Nguyen Tho Tuan, 25-year-old man from Nghe An

Dang Huu Tuyen, 22-year-old man from Nghe An

Nguyen Trong Thai, 26-year-old man from Nghe An

Nguyen Van Hiep, 24-year-old man from Nghe An

Nguyen Thi Van, 35-year-old woman from Nghe An

Tran Hai Loc, 35-year-old man from Nghe An

Duong Minh Tuan, 27-year-old man from Quang Binh

Nguyen Ngoc Ha, 32-year-old man from Quang Binh

Nguyen Tien Dung, 33-year-old man from Quang, Binh

Phan Thi Thanh, 41-year-old woman from Hai Phong

Nguyen Ba Vu Hung, 34-year-old man from Thua Tien Hue

Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen, 18-year-old man from Hai Phong

Tran Ngoc Hieu, 17-year-old boy from Hai Duong

Dinh Dinh Binh, 15-year-old boy from Hai Phong

https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/uknews/all-39-victims-of-essex-lorry-identified/ar-BBWu4vh?li=BBr8Cnr

 

 

 

[reader]

From the BBC

How a boy from Vietnam became a slave on a UK cannabis farm

It was a horrifying death for the 39 Vietnamese nationals found in the back of a trailer in an industrial park in Essex, in October last year. The story shone a light on the subterranean world of people smuggling and human trafficking, reports Cat McShane, specifically the thriving route between Vietnam and the UK.

Ba is slight for 18. His body shrinks into a neat package as he recalls his experiences. We're sitting in a brightly lit kitchen, a Jack Russell dog darting between us under the table. Ba's foster mum fusses in the background, making lunch and occasionally interjecting to clarify or add some detail to his account of his journey here from Vietnam. She wants to make sure his story is understood.

Ba's lived here for nearly a year. He was placed with his foster parents after being found wandering, confused and scared, around a train station in the North of England, with just the clothes he was wearing. "You feel safe now though, don't you?" his foster mum asks, needing affirmation that the mental and physical scars Ba wears will heal with enough care.

His story is one both extraordinary, and typical of the growing number of Vietnamese men and women recognised as being potential victims of trafficking in the UK. For several years, Vietnamese have been one of the top three nationalities featured in modern slavery cases referred to the National Crime Agency, with 702 cases in 2018.

The Salvation Army, which supports all adult victims of modern slavery in the UK, says the number of Vietnamese nationals referred to them over the last five years has more than doubled. It's estimated 18,000 people make the journey from Vietnam to Europe each year.

Ba believes it was a Chinese gang that trafficked him to the UK. He was kidnapped off the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, where he was a street child, an orphan who slept in the bend of a sewage pipe. He sold lottery tickets for money, although older men sometimes beat him and grabbed his takings.

A 2017 Unicef report described Ho Chi Minh City as "a source location, place of transition and destination of child trafficking". And a 2018 report by anti-trafficking charities said numerous trafficked Vietnamese children had reported being abducted while living on the streets.

That's what happened to Ba. "An older man told me that if I came with him, he could help me earn a lot of money. But when I said no, he put a bag over my head. I couldn't believe what was happening," he says. He was then bundled into a small van, bound as well as blindfolded, his shouts stifled.

Somewhere along the way, Ba's captors changed, and now he couldn't understand the language they spoke. When they finally came to a standstill and the bag was removed, Ba found himself in a large, empty, windowless warehouse in China, and was told to wait. "I knew they were preparing to send me somewhere to work," he says.

During the months that Ba was held there, a guard regularly beat him. "I don't know why," Ba says with a shrug, "there was no reason." When he was caught trying to escape, his punishment was far worse than kicks and punches - the guard poured scalding water over his chest and arms.

"It was agony. I was shouting at him to stop but he didn't listen," he says. Ba became unconscious with the pain. "I just lay still for days. I couldn't walk. It was painful for a very long time."

His foster mum adds that his scarred skin is tight all over his body, and a permanent reminder of what happened to him.

Ba was then moved to the UK in a succession of trucks. He remembers the silence of the final container, where the human cargo hid among boxes. The quiet was broken only by the rustling of cardboard being ripped up, to be used as insulation from the gnawing cold. His long-sleeved top offered little protection.

"I was always scared on the journey, and very tired. I couldn't sleep because I was so worried. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wasn't told anything about where I was going."

In fact, Ba was destined to work as a "gardener" in the UK's illegal cannabis trade - which is valued at around £2.6bn a year. In an abandoned two-storey house surrounded by woodland, he was locked-up and told to look after the plants that grew on every available surface. It was a mundane vigil of switching lights on and off over the plants at set times and watering them every few hours.

But it was also punctuated by violence. When a plant failed, Ba was starved and kicked by a Chinese boss, who would aim for the burns on his chest.

Ba never received any payment for his work, and wasn't told he was earning to pay off his fare to the UK. He was a slave.

"How did I keep going? I kept telling myself to keep eating, keep working and to wait for the opportunity to run away," he says.

He finally escaped by smashing an upstairs window, and jumping to the ground. Then he ran for as long as he could.

Continues at

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51176958

[reader]

From The Guardian

Vietnam police charge seven over role in trafficking

Police in Vietnam have charged seven people in connection with the deaths of 39 migrants whose bodies were discovered in the back of a lorry in the UK in 2019, authorities said late on Thursday.

The victims, who included two 15-year-old boys, were mostly from two provinces in north-central Vietnam, where poor job prospects, encouragement by authorities, smuggling gangs and environmental issues have fuelled migration.

Seven defendants, including a Vietnamese woman living in China, were charged with creating immigration profiles for 67 people in Vietnam for illegal work in Britain and Europe, Ha Tinh province regional police said in a statement.

Police referred specifically to the case of 26-year-old Pham Thi Tra My, who was one of the victims found in the back of a lorry in Essex on 23 October last year.

“They contacted the victim in late June 2019 and charged her $22,000 to create immigration profiles,” the statement said. “The victim in September was then taken to China, France and the UK.”

British police last week arrested two more people over the deaths.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/21/essex-lorry-deaths-vietnam-police-charge-seven-over-role-in-trafficking