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 Even as human-smuggling casualties lie in Seattle morgue, 19 more migrants arrive KIM LUNMAN and JANE ARMSTRONG
Victoria and Seattle -- KIM LUNMAN
They made their journey in blackness, side by side with 15 other stowaways crammed into a cargo container the size of a tractor-trailer in a ship that set sail from Asia two weeks ago for an illegal voyage to America. Now their corpses, all three of them, lie side by side on storage slabs inside the King County morgue in Seattle. There are identification tags around their ankles, marked numbers 56, 57, 58. Nobody knew their names or ages yesterday. Nobody could say where they would be buried. They are the first known casualties in the human smuggling trade from Asia that has turned to a new trend of concealing stowaways inside cargo crates aboard freighters destined for North American ports. Early yesterday morning, 19 more Chinese migrants were discovered in a container aboard the Hanjin Yokhama at the Port of Seattle hours after the first container was found. All appeared healthy and were taken to a detention centre. They are the fourth group of Chinese migrants to be caught in containers at the Port of Seattle since last week. Another 25 Chinese migrants were discovered inside a cargo crate aboard a vessel at the Port of Vancouver last week. That ship was also destined for Seattle. More than 230 Chinese migrants have arrived in cargo containers in California, Washington and B.C. ports since last February. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the deaths of the three migrants yesterday, said spokeswoman Roberta Burroughs. U.S. authorities discovered the dead inside the cargo container with 15 survivors aboard the Cape May freighter on Monday. The conditions were described as horrific. There was no food or water left inside the 13-metre-long, soft-topped container that was stacked under tonnes of cargo in four other containers below deck. Initial autopsy findings released yesterday indicated "no injuries and no infections or natural diseases were responsible for the deaths." The cause of the deaths has not yet been determined. The other passengers, all men, were found inside shivering and starving. They had few belongings. Some were barefoot. Some had flashlights, the batteries long run down by the time they were discovered in the container that reeked of death and human waste. Blinking in the afternoon Seattle drizzle, the migrants filed out of the orange container but sank to the ground in exhaustion even before the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization officials could order them to the ground. They wore track pants and thin cotton shirts. One man was so thin his bones were outlined. Others had to be helped into ambulances. Medical personnel lowered one man into a wheelchair. Longshoreman Craig Luttrell watched the parade of dazed Chinese migrants as they filed out of the container Monday afternoon at Seattle's Terminal 18 on Harbor Island. As a crane lowered the container into the dock yard, immigration officials and police with dogs approached the doors and swung them open. "It made me feel very sad," Mr. Luttrell said. "You think of all the things you have and then you see these people; everything they own is on their backs. They have nothing." Mr. Luttrell said the men looked like caged animals; confused, disoriented and half-starved. "We just stood there and watched," he said. "I think everyone had their own thoughts. I mean, can you imagine being locked in a box for weeks?" A Canada Customs official said yesterday that an X-ray-type machine that can scan container cargo to identify its contents -- including people -- is being tested and could soon be used at Vancouver's port. Last week, Mr. Luttrell watched as 14 migrants rushed down the gangway of the Norasia Shamsha and scattered into the Seattle dockyard. He said they were well-dressed and healthy looking and were poised to make a run for it until longshoremen spotted them. At first, workers thought the migrants were crew until they learned the real crew was Puerto Rican. Longshoremen leaned on their horns to alert U.S. Customs officials at the dock and the migrants scattered. However, immigration officials said they picked up all 14. Mr. Luttrell said the container carrying those men was strewn with garbage, rancid blankets and boxes piled to the ceiling. Five 30-gallon drums were used as toilets and the smell was sickening, he said. There is still little known about the dead migrants. It was initially reported that an elderly woman had died but officials said yesterday all three were men, reports of their ages varying between 20s and 40s. "The identities have not been established," said investigator Dave Delgado at the King County medical examiner's office. They could have been dead three to seven days. U.S. Attorney-General Janet Reno yesterday condemned the smugglers. "Anyone who traffics in human beings is the worst kind of criminal," she told reporters in Seattle. The Cape May, owned by the Japanese shipping company NYK, left Singapore on Dec. 19, made a stop in Taiwan and left Hong Kong for Seattle on Dec. 27. "It looks as if they were put inside five days before [the container] was loaded on the ship," said INS spokeswoman Sharon Gavin. Surprise shipment via helicopter sparks anger from environmentalists and community leaders By WALLACE IMMEN and COLIN FREEZE - Saturday, January 15, 2000 Tape appears to show York
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