Vietnamese families report missing relatives after UK truck deaths

Several Vietnamese families on Saturday reported their relatives to be missing after the bodies of 39 migrants were found inside a refrigerated container truck in the Essex county in southeastern England earlier this week.

According to Xinhua, as many as seven families in Nghe An province and some others in Ha Tinh province have reported their inability to get across to their offsprings in Britain since Tuesday.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Saturday called on country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to closely monitor the situation and work with relevant British agencies to confirm the victims' identity. Following this, the ministry said in a statement that it had instructed its embassy in London to assist British police with the identification of victims.

31 men and eight women were found dead inside the truck early Wednesday at an industrial park in Grays, a town located 40 kilometres east of London. While the UK police said that they believed the dead were Chinese citizens, the Chinese officials told reporters in Beijing that the nationalities and identities of the victims are yet to be confirmed.

Five suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident which is said to have created the biggest British murder investigation since the July 2005 suicide bombings in London.

Among those arrested, the driver of the truck, identified as 25-year old Maurice Robinson, has been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to traffic people, conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and money laundering, Sputnik quoted the British police as saying on Saturday.