Current Events

Sikh-Afghans:

A Desperate Escape to Freedom

ARTHUR MARTIN & STEPHEN JOHNS [The Daily Mail] and STEPH COCKROFT & WILLS ROBINSON [MailOnline]

Moment 35 Afghan Sikhs were freed from 'metal coffin': Screaming stowaways are helped by police who are now hunting international network of people smugglers who brought them to Britain

International manhunt continues for traffickers who crammed 35 immigrants into container bound for Port of Tilbury





Disturbing footage showed migrants crawling helplessly on the floor, while harrowing screams echo around docks



13 children, including a baby, and adults up to the age of 72 - including man in his 40s who died - were among group



Police have begun to question some of the immigrants - Belgian officials 'very hopeful' they can track down driver



Officers have said it would have been 'impossible' for group to have been loaded into the container at Zeebrugge

Spokesman Peter De Waele said each container is captured on camera and seals are under strict security controls

Essex Police have confirmed all of those inside the unit were Sikhs from Afghanistan - two remain in hospital today



An international manhunt was continuing last night for the traffickers and lorry driver who tried to smuggle 35 desperate Afghan Sikhs into Britain in a shipping container that became a ‘metal coffin’.

Full details of the horrifying incident have emerged in a video of the moment 34 of the migrants – including 13 children – were rescued.

The footage shows them weak and confused after their wailing and banging alerted rescuers at the port of Tilbury, Essex, on Saturday morning.

They were pulled sobbing from the sealed container in which they had been left to suffocate, but not before one of the migrants died.



Some of the survivors, aged from one to 72, were so dehydrated that they had to be lifted out by police. Others could be seen sitting dazed on the pavement as paramedics treated the most severely injured.

Most of the survivors were discharged from hospitals yesterday and taken to a reception centre where they were questioned by police and Border Force officials through interpreters. Callous people-traffickers had crammed the migrants – all from Afghanistan’s beleaguered Sikh community – into the container packed with crates of cleaning chemicals and put it on a P&O cargo ferry from the Belgium port of Zeebrugge on Friday night before fleeing. Police have launched a murder inquiry and are working with Interpol in a bid to track down the gang. Officers in Belgium are studying CCTV images of the lorry in an attempt to find the driver to establish if he was involved in the operation or was unaware of his human cargo.

Moment immigrants are released from Tilbury shipping container



This footage shows the dramatic moment that 35 immigrants - including 12 children and a baby - were released from a shipping containing yesterday morning, after being discovered at the Port of Tilbury, Essex In the disturbing footage, the immigrants - now confirmed as Afghan Sikhs - can be seen crawling helplessly around the floor, while harrowing screams echo around the dock

A Belgian police spokesman said it was impossible for the migrants to have climbed into the container while it was sitting in the port as it was there for only an hour and the area is covered extensively by CCTV.

ECHO OF TOMATO LORRY TRAGEDY

This incident has chilling echoes of a tragedy 14 years ago in which 58 Chinese stowaways died on the way from Belgium to Britain.

Customs officers discovered the bodies of 54 men and four women in the back of a tomato lorry which arrived in Dover on June 18, 2000. The migrants had suffocated after their air vent was closed.

Driver Perry Wacker was jailed for 14 years for manslaughter.

‘It was around 6pm so it wasn’t dark,’ he said. ‘We think that the possibility [is that] the victims were already on the container before it was put down in Zeebrugge.’



He said investigators have been combing CCTV and are 'very hopeful' that they can track down the driver and company of the vehicle that deposited the container.



Mr De Waele added each container is captured on camera and their seals are subject to 'very strict' controls.

His officers were working closely with Essex police, he added, and he described tackling human trafficking as a 'priority' in Belgium.

One report claimed yesterday that the stowaways spent nine days locked inside before they were found. Police believe a second container with 12 people inside is still to be found, the report claimed.



Zeebrugge has become a popular port for people smugglers because of its size and regular cargo ferry crossings to Britain.

The number of ‘clandestine illegal entry attempts’ by migrants trying to get to the UK via ports in Belgium and France increased last year to 18,000 from about 11,000 the year before, according UK Border Agency figures.

Police and border officials are seen trying to help the immigrants, as several collapse onto the floor, letting out desperate cries for help Essex police have confirmed the group included nine men and eight women aged between 18 and 72, as well as 13 children, aged between one and 12 years old Thirty of those found in the container have been released from local hospitals while four of the remaining victims continue to be treated at South Hospital. They are expected to be discharged by tomorrow The Tilbury container had been loaded from a lorry on to P&O’s Norstream ferry at Zeebrugge on Friday at 9.20pm. The ship arrived in Essex at around 6am on Saturday.

The alarm was raised some half an hour later when the desperate pleas for help were heard.



An immediate search was ordered of the other 50 containers on the ferry in case any more migrants were on board.

Superintendent Trevor Roe, of Essex Police, said: ‘We have had a good deal of help from partners within the local Sikh community in the Tilbury area to ensure that these poor people, who would have been through a horrific ordeal, are supported in terms of their religious and clothing needs.’



Stephen Metcalfe, Conservative MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, said: ‘The fact that so many people appear to have travelled so far and are so desperate to get into the UK – either on their own or being trafficked – is really sad.’

Dock workers made the shocking discovery at 6.37am on Saturday morning after they heard 'screaming and banging' coming from inside one of the ship's containers

Migrants in France and Belgium typically pay gangs about £1,500 each to be smuggled into Britain.

They have often travelled from their home countries by land via Turkey before being herded into UK-bound containers.

Alternatively, some are flown to Moscow on fake visas before being driven across Eastern Europe.



Supt Roe added: 'Now they are well enough, our officers and colleagues from the Border Force will be speaking to them via interpreters so we can piece together what happened and how they came to be in the container.

'We now understand that they are from Afghanistan and are of the Sikh faith. Members of the Sikh community in Thurrock, Essex, are helping support the victims alongside the Red Cross.'

Some 32 people had been released from local hospitals by last night to a reception centre at the Port of Tilbury.



The two remaining victims were continuing to be treated at Southend Hospital today.

A Belgian police spokesman said it would be 'impossible' for the illegal immigrants to have boarded the vessel (pictured at Tilbury Docks yesterday) at Zeebrugge

AFGHAN SIKHS: THE COMMUNITY DISPLACED BY CONFLICT Sikhs are a tiny minority in Afghanistan with only 3,000 members of the community in a population of 31 million. Most of them are said to have migrated to other countries including India, Canada, Germany and Britain. Their mass exodus began when the mujahideen came to power in 1992, following the Soviet withdrawal from the country and the collapse of the communist Najibullah regime. Until the civil war, they, along with Hindus and Jews, controlled money markets in major towns including Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar. But when the conflict began, gurudwaras around the country were destroyed and many were forced to flee. When the Taliban ruled the country in 2001, the Sikhs were forced to wear yellow tags, and the women were made to wear veils. In 2009, a spokesman for the Hindu-Sikh Society in Afghanistan, Daya Singh Anjaa, told RFI (Radio France Internationale) that the group are now impoverished and are struggling to find a place in Afghan society. There is a community of Afghan Sikhs in London who maintain a gurudwara in Southall. Source: Radio France Internationale



Two police officers stand next to an ambulance at the gates of Tilbury Docks yesterday morning after dock workers made the shocking discovery

An ambulance enters the Essex port following the incident. The stowaways were treated for severe dehydration and hypothermia after they were found



[Photo: The A&E department of Basildon University Hospital in Essex was closed off as a 'decontamination area' as the suspected immigrants were treated.] [Courtesy: Arthur Martin & Stephen Johns for The Daily Mail; Steph Cockroft & Wills Robinson for MailOnline.] August 18, 2014

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