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Monday January 10 11:51 PM ET Three Dead Among Latest Seattle Stowaways

Three Dead Among Latest Seattle Stowaways

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Federal agents found three dead Chinese stowaways, at least one of them a woman, along with 15 malnourished and dehydrated Chinese men in a cargo container on a ship at the Port of Seattle, local officials said Monday.

The stowaways apparently died at sea and their bodies had been left in the container with the living.

The ship, en route from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, was the third in a week detained here for immigrant smuggling and the latest in a string of ships taking illegal Chinese immigrants to Seattle, Vancouver and Los Angeles.

But it was the first found to be transporting dead bodies.

``We were concerned that these smuggling groups would eventually kill someone doing this,'' said Robert Coleman, acting director at the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. ''I do not know the cause of death. As you can imagine the conditions were quite gruesome.''

The survivors were in their 20s and 30s. One local television station reported they wore surgical masks as they were placed in vans and driven to Harbour View Medical Center.

One of the stowaways was admitted to the hospital in serious condition. The others were ``very weak'' but stable.


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