Police identify 39 people found dead in trucks as Chinese citizens

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(CNN) - British police said the 39 people who were found dead inside a truck in a UK industrial park on Wednesday were Chinese citizens.

"Since then we have confirmed that eight of the dead are women and 31 are men and all are believed to be Chinese citizens," Essex police wrote in a statement.

The cause of death has not yet been established, the police added, since “they must undergo a full forensic process… before attempting to identify each individual in the trailer. This will be a substantial operation and, at this time, we cannot estimate how long these procedures will take. ”

On Wednesday, 25-year-old truck driver from Northern Ireland Morris Robinson was arrested on suspicion of murder after a truck, originally from Northern Ireland, and a container with the victims were found in an industrial park in Grays, Essex, a City 32 kilometers east of London.

CNN witnessed how Northern Ireland forces registered two properties in Armagh County, southwest of Belfast.

Local residents identified one of the properties as the home of Robinson's parents.

As the horrific series of events developed, members of Parliament speculated in the House of Commons that the incident was related to human trafficking, a claim still to be confirmed by the police.

Police in England, Northern Ireland and now Belgium struggled overnight to establish the chain of events that led to the deaths.

CNN witnessed how Northern Ireland forces registered two properties in Armagh County, southwest of Belfast. Local residents identified one of the properties as the home of Robinson's parents.

They also told CNN that Robinson's parents have traveled to England to support him. Essex police said Wednesday that the container arrived in a nearby city, on the River Thames, after traveling from the Belgian port city of Zeebrugge. It was then transported by a red Scania truck to the Waterglade Industrial Park.

The driver who was found with a truck with 39 people dead.

Belgian officials said Thursday that an investigation focused on "organizers and all other parties involved in this transport," adding that the container arrived in Zeebrugge on Tuesday afternoon at 2.49 p.m. CEST and left the port the same day. .
The container arrived in Purfleet, a city on the River Thames, early Wednesday, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

"It is still unclear when the victims were placed in the container and if this happened in Belgium," he said.

The truck was found on a street in the heart of the usually occupied industrial zone. Police, who were called to the scene around 1:40 a.m. on Wednesday, said the victims were found dead at the scene.

Road transport experts said the truck appeared to be refrigerated. That could mean freezing temperatures between -5 and -10 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 ° C to -23 ° C), Richard Burnett, executive director of the trade agency, the Transportation Association of, told the Pennsylvania news agency Roads, making conditions "absolutely horrendous" for anyone inside.

"I can't overstate how great the tragedy is that 39 people felt they had no better option than to get on the back of this truck and obviously ended up in an absolute tragedy," said Matthew Carter, emergency communications delegate for the British Red Cross He told CNN on the scene Wednesday.

He added that the charity was also providing support to the forensic team, offering them "a place where they can come and reflect, talk."

"It's not something that (emergency services) deals with every day," Carter told CNN. "A guy told a colleague of mine that it's the hardest thing he's faced in (his) 30-year career."

The truck was later transferred, as CNN saw it, to a "safe place" in Tilbury Docks, about 20 minutes by car from Grays, to "maintain the dignity of those who lost their lives."

Lindsay Isaac and Bianca Britton of CNN contributed to this report.