A UK court has found two men guilty of manslaughter following the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants, who were found dead in the refrigerated container of a truck in Essex, England in October 2019.
A further two men were found guilty of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration; they join four others who pled guilty before the trial, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Monday in a statement.
A total of 39 Vietnamese migrants — including men, women and children, aged between 15 and 44 — were found dead on 22 October 2019, having suffered from oxygen starvation after being sealed in an air-tight truck container for more than 11 hours.
“They died through lack of oxygen, desperately trying to escape from the container. Some were able to express their last words to their families on their mobile phones when they knew their situation was hopeless,” said Russell Tyner of the CPS Organised Crime Division.
“Nothing can bring back the lives lost on that day and the loss caused by the unlawful and dangerous actions taken by these defendants. But we hope that these convictions bring some measure of solace to their families that the perpetrators of these actions have faced justice,” he added.
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