Dutch police have made a second arrest in
connection with the deaths of 58 people found in a truck in the
British port of Dover.
 Dave
Caulkin/AP |
|
British
police guard the area in Dover where the Dutch produce
truck has been
parked | |
The Dutch driver of the truck was
detained in Dover and held on suspicion of manslaughter. On Tuesday,
Dutch authorities announced the second arrest. They said they
captured the suspect during a raid on three houses in the Dutch port
of Rotterdam on Monday.
Police did not release the suspect's name and refused to say if
the suspect was a man they had been pursuing — Dutch engineer Arie
Van der Spek, 24, who owned the company that leased the truck.
Police said earlier that Van der Spek registered the company, Van
der Spek Transporten, on June 15. He vanished before police showed
up at his Rotterdam apartment Monday.
In Dover, Dutch and British police interrogated the truck driver
who brought the young immigrants, most in their 20s, on the last leg
of their trip from southern China's Fujian province. And in
Canterbury, the only two survivors remained under police guard
Tuesday, traumatized by their futile struggle to escape the truck.
The searches in Rotterdam were carried out by a special
prosecution team that deals with smuggling offences and the
Southeast Asia unit of Rotterdam police. Thirty-five detectives were
working on the case and three had joined British officers.
Suffocated 'One by One'
Meanwhile, the first accounts emerged from the two traumatized,
dehydrated survivors — the only two to escape the truck alive late
Sunday.
According to The Guardian, the survivors were taken under
police guard to Kent and Canterbury hospital, 55 miles southeast of
London. There, they were treated for the effects of being trapped in
the truck, which had its refrigeration unit switched off as
temperatures outside reached 90 degrees.
 David
Giles/AP |
|
Dover,
where the bodies were found, is one of the busiest ports
in Europe | |
The two survivors were understood to have been severely
dehydrated and barely able to speak when discovered. A nurse at the
hospital said: "They needed psychological counseling rather than
treatment."
Police are aware that the lives of the survivors could be in
danger from whoever was behind the smuggling racket, and provided a
guard of 10 officers throughout the day.
The appalling conditions in the steel box in the summer heat
attached to the truck probably meant the 58 Chinese illegal
immigrants died of suffocation, a haulage expert said.
Geoff Dossitter, of the Freight Transport Association, was quoted
by The Guardian as saying those who died would have
suffocated "one by one" as the oxygen in the sealed container ran
out.
Dossitter said: "These must have been the most horrendous deaths.
You have got 60 people in the back of a vehicle and they are packed
into a sealed container. The oxygen must have run out.
A Lucrative, International Racket
The stowaways in this case appeared to be from China's southern
Fujian province, where racketeers known as "snakeheads" charge
would-be immigrants to the West up to $60,000 for the perilous
passage.
 Sean
Dempsey/PA/AP |
|
This
April 2000 photo shows British authorities helping a
stowaway jump down from the rear of a freighter truck in
Dover | |
The disaster prompted Britain to launch a major investigation
into the lucrative, international racket of smuggling immigrants to
the West and focused a spotlight on the desperate measures would-be
immigrants are willing to take. Authorities say crime syndicates
illegally smuggle thousands of immigrants through Britain's ports.
Customs officers find up to 2,000 illegal immigrants of all
nationalities hidden in trucks at or near British ports each month —
and believe many more slip through. This year, Britain started
imposing fines of $3,000 on truckers for every illegal immigrant
found aboard and ended cash social security payments to
asylum-seekers.
The hefty fine did nothing to prevent the number of Chinese
illegal immigrants increasing from 225 last October to more than
double that in March and April.
The British Home Office said they believe the recent increase has
less to do with political persecution and more to do with the
emergence of a new organized illegal trade with links to major crime
syndicates.
According to The Guardian, the trade has emerged in the
last five years, after governments around the world imposed fines on
airlines and shipping companies that allowed passengers to travel
without proper documents.
In London Tuesday, a Chinese attorney said three Chinese families
living in Britain — themselves illegal immigrants — had contacted
him over fears their relatives might be among the 58 victims. But
they were reluctant to come forward, fearing deportation. The lawyer
called on the British Home Secretary to offer an amnesty to anyone
wanting to give information about relatives they were expecting to
join them in Britain.
In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry did not confirm that the
stowaways were Chinese but said it was shocked and was in contact
with British authorities.
"The international community has the responsibility to join hands
to crack down on illegal immigration," a ministry spokesman said.
— The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this
report