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U.K. police believe 39 found dead in truck container were Chinese nationals

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Truck driver arrested on suspicion of murder; Northern Ireland police search 3 properties

Thirty-nine people, all Chinese nationals, were found dead Wednesday inside a truck container in southeastern England. (Alastair Grant/The Associated Press)

All 39 people found dead in a truck container at an industrial park in southeastern England this week were Chinese nationals, British police said Thursday.

Essex Police said the bodies of 31 men and eight women were found in Grays, 40 kilometres east of London. Authorities said one person previously thought to be a teenager was a young adult woman. China's Foreign Ministry later confirmed the reports.

The 25-year-old truck driver, who is from Northern Ireland, is being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder. A magistrate gave detectives another 24 hours to question the man. He has not been charged, and police have not released his name.

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Police in Northern Ireland searched three properties there as detectives sought to piece together how the truck's cab, its container and the victims came together on such a deadly journey.

Pippa Mills, deputy chief of Essex Police, said the process of conducting examinations and identifying the victims would be "lengthy and complex.

"This is an incredibly sensitive and high-profile investigation, and we are working swiftly to gather as full a picture as possible as to how these people lost their lives."

Truck and trailer travelled separately

The truck and the trailer found Wednesday with the people inside apparently took separate circuitous journeys before ending up on the grounds of the Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays on the River Thames.

British police said they believe the container went from the North Sea port of Zeebrugge in Belgium to the English town of Purfleet, about 40 kilometres east of London, where it arrived early Wednesday.

The Belgian federal prosecutor's office confirmed Thursday the container had come through Zeebrugge. In a statement, the office said the container was at port for only a short time before it crossed the sea to England.

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However, Belgian authorities said they had not made much headway in finding out how the container ended up in Zeebrugge.

"Up 'til now, we have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. We don't even know which road was followed by the truck in Belgium," said Eric Van Duyse, spokesperson for the Belgian prosecutor's office.

The prosecutor's statement said it appears the container arrived in Zeebrugge on Tuesday at 2:49 p.m. local time, and "left the port the same day in the afternoon."

The chairman of Zeebrugge port, Dirk de Fauw, said he believed the victims died in the trailer before it arrived there.

"We have a safe system with safety guards. We have cameras everywhere. We have policemen in the streets of Zeebrugge, in the dunes with horses," de Fauw, who is also mayor of the nearby city of Bruges, told Reuters Television.

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"I think they were dead before they are coming here to Zeebrugge. I think so."

The truck's cab, which is registered in Bulgaria to a company owned by an Irish woman, is believed to have travelled from Northern Ireland to Dublin. It was on a ferry to Wales, then driven across England to pick up the container.

Rising smuggling numbers in Belgium

Cooling containers often move swiftly through Zeebrugge, just with a visual check, for the short crossing to England.

A National Crime Agency assessment report on serious and organized crime last year said there was a "greater focus" on rising smuggler numbers in Belgium after the closure of the Dunkirk migrant camp in 2017.

Show more A man has been arrested after officials found a truck containing 39 bodies in Essex, England. Authorities say it’s believed the truck had travelled to the U.K. from Bulgaria. 1:57

In 2000, 58 migrants died in a truck in Dover, England, while on a months-long journey from China's southern Fujian province. Their bodies were discovered stowed away with a cargo of tomatoes after a ferry ride from Zeebrugge, the same Belgian port used in the latest incident.

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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed in Parliament on Wednesday that human smugglers would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The U.K., with its high demand for tourism, restaurant and agricultural workers, remains a very attractive destination for immigrants from all countries, even as the U.K. is rethinking immigration rules as it prepares to leave the 28-nation European Union.

Authorities have warned for several years that human smugglers are turning to Dutch and Belgian ports because of increased security measures on the cross-channel trade route between the ports of Calais in France and Dover in England.

Britain's National Crime Agency warned in 2016 that people smuggling using containers on ferries was "the highest-priority organized immigration crime threat." The same year, the U.K. Border Force identified Zeebrugge as a key launching points for smuggling people into the U.K.

With files from Reuters