Refugees have revealed their horrific journeys to Britain and the terror they felt crammed in the back of 'metal coffin' lorries.

Ahmad Al-Rashid told of his harrowing journey after yesterday's discovery on an Essex industrial estate brought back the trauma.

He travelled for 55 days as he fled Aleppo for London in 2015 and says 'the smell of death' is 'impossible to forget'.

Sharing his ordeal, he said on Twitter: 'I was in the back of a couple of refrigerated lorries in 2015 with frozen chicken and meat.

'In one of the incidents I was kept there for two hours, it was freezing cold... people started coughing and freezing... so we started to knock and knock and knock.

The Syrian refugee relived his ordeal of almost freezing to death in the back of a refrigerated lorry following the discovery of 39 bodies in a container in Essex yesterday

Left: Ahmad Al-Rashid, who told of his harrowing journey after yesterday's discovery of 39 bodies in a container on an Essex industrial estate brought back the trauma. Right: Sabir Zazai, who is now chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said every moment on the truck he came to the UK in felt like his life was ending

Gulwali Passarlay (pictured on today's Good Morning Britain), from Afghanistan, fled the Taliban dictatorship and also came to the UK in the back of a refrigerated lorry

'You are at the mercy of the smugglers to come and get you out because it's all locked from outside. The screams of those people still haunt me.

'I can never forget the eyes of those who were with me on that tanker with no air, no light, nothing but the smell of death. It's impossible to forget it. I can hear them screaming to death because I was there.

'I can feel them clinging onto life but in vain. I just realised how lucky I am to be alive.'

Al-Rashid relived his terrifying journey for a BBC documentary

The container lorry where 39 people were found dead inside leaves Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, Essex yesterday, heading towards Tilbury Docks under police escort

The 39 desperate stowaway migrants were locked up in the trailer (above). It is unclear how long they had been in there for

The English literature graduate said yesterday's grim discovery was a 'tragic, tragic incident' after it emerged that the people inside the lorry froze to death.

Arsenal fan Mr Al-Rashid said the people inside would have left their homes having no other option.



'You won't do this unless you have no option,' he said. 'When I left Syria it was a dreadful situation...you look for places of safety when your children could grow up and where there will be a future for them.'

Robinson arrived in the UK at the weekend. He picked up the trailer, which had been shipped from Zeebrugge to Purfleet, yesterday evening. Minutes later, he pulled into the Essex industrial estate and the alarm was raised

Mo Robinson is the truck driver arrested after 39 people were found dead in the back of a lorry he was driving

Police are quizzing Mo Robinson, 25, from Northern Ireland as they investigate the deaths following the bodies being found in a refrigerated trailer in Grays and the National Crime Agency is investigation any links to to traffickers.

Refugee Gulwali Passarlay, from Afghanistan, fled the Taliban dictatorship and also came to the UK in the back of a refrigerated lorry.

What is it like freezing to death? Shivering and hallucinations as your body battles to keep vital organs active The first step in freezing to death is a raised heart rate and an increase in breathing as your blood seeks to protect internal organs by slowing the flow to the extremities. In an attempt to generate heat, your body will now start to shiver. Hypothermia takes just 10 minutes to set in at -1C (30.F). Organs shut down and the body goes into shock when the heart struggles to pump blood. At this point your liver and kidneys are at risk of failing. Once your body temperature is below 35C (95F), every one-degree drop reduces your brain's ability to produce oxygen by three to five per cent. This causes weakness and confusion and, once you're below 33C (91F), amnesia. Your body gives up shivering once below 31C (88F). Your blood thickens and oxygen intake drops by 25 per cent. The body feels a desperate need to urinate as the kidneys try to process excess fluids forced in by the constriction of your extremities. The heat stops functioning properly once your temperature hits 30C (86F) and pumps 66 per cent less blood than usual. Hallucinations occur due to the lack of oxygen and slow metabolism of the brain. Nerve damage causes people to lose rationality at this point, leading some to undress despite the freezing conditions. Others have been known to burrow and enter small spaces in an apparent attempt of self-protection before they inevitably die. Advertisement

Today he told Good Morning Britain that the UK and its 'hostile environment' bears some responsibility for the people smuggling trade.

‘I think it exists because governments like Britain doesn’t have safer means to travel,' he said.

‘If there was civilised and ways that people can have safe passage then I wouldn’t have risked my life - I wouldn’t have been in that container.'

Another refugee who fled the Taliban, Sabir Zazai, who is now chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, told the Daily Mirror of his ordeal being crammed into a truck with other migrants.

'It was ink black and we were so squashed our legs were tucked up and there was no room to stand,' he said. 'My main memory of that final journey is the terror I felt. Each moment felt like my life was ending.'

Essex police began a murder inquiry yesterday as they attempted to establish who the migrants were and which country they had travelled from.

Like thousands of others before them, the group are thought to have sneaked inside the container at the busy Belgian shipping port of Zeebrugge, where row after row of rectangular metal containers are lined up ready to be transported to the UK.

Police are trying to establish when the group got inside and if smugglers found the container for them and then locked the door behind them.

The container was placed on a cargo ship on Tuesday, which then set sail around 2pm. The choppy Channel crossing took around ten hours before the ship docked at the Essex port of Purfleet on the Thames at 12.30am yesterday.

Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said those inside would have frozen to death in horrendous conditions if the refrigeration had been switched on.