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Dover tragedy: `Victims each paid pounds 14,000 to be herded like
Independent, The (London), Jun 21, 2000 by Steve Boggan
GANG MEMBERS involved in human trafficking forced some of the victims of the Dover lorry tragedy to march towards Britain at gunpoint, according to the cousin of one of the 58 dead.
Yang Chen, 20, who believes his 19-year-old cousin, Chen Lin, was among those found dead by customs officers in a tomato lorry in the early hours of Monday, said the victims were charged pounds 14,000 and promised a flight into the UK.
Instead, they were herded like cattle during a four-month trek from their homes in the Fujian province of southern China through Beijing, Moscow, the Czech Republic, and then on to the Netherlands, where they boarded the lorry.
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The Dutch police arrested a man in Rotterdam yesterday as British police revealed that all those who died were aged between about 20 and 30 and had suffered respiratory failure.
Mr Chen said that his cousin had been allowed to make telephone calls throughout the journey and had last called from Zeebrugge, saying he was coming over to England on Sunday night. He said his cousin's family are sure he is dead. "They are quite sure he was on that lorry because they have not heard anything from him since Holland." He said his cousin had left the city of Jiangle, in Fujian province in February because he was being persecuted as a Roman Catholic. "His mother is devastated," he said. "She was in tears on the phone. Both the father and the mother were crying as we talked about what had happened."
He said his cousin's family had had to borrow from relatives and moneylenders to raise the pounds 14,000 fee. It would take them five years to pay off the debt, despite losing their son.
Mr Chen said his cousin had reported that the traffickers had guns and used the threat of force to make the refugees undertake the arduous journey.
They had been told they would be flying to the UK but, once they began the overland journey, they found they had no choice but to press on.
His cousin and a friend, also 19, had reached Holland in a small group and then been pooled with others to make up the 60 who were then to climb into the lorry bound for Dover.
Mr Chen said of his cousin: "He was an ordinary boy with hopes for the future."
Further reports, page 5David Aaronovitch, Review, page 5
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