page_title: Essex lorry deaths
section_title: Lorry
hierarchical_section_title: Essex lorry deaths / Lorry
caption_attribution_description: Pictured at Clonard, Co. Meath - May 2012 - Scania R500 pulls in - refrigerated trailer
context_page_description: On 23 October 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese, 29 men, 2 boys, and 8 women, were found in the trailer of an articulated refrigerator lorry in Grays, Essex, United Kingdom. The trailer had been shipped from the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, to Purfleet, Essex, UK, and the lorry cab and its driver are believed to be originated from Northern Ireland. Investigations are being led by Essex Police, and involve the national authorities of the UK, Belgium, Ireland and Vietnam. Five men, including two lorry drivers who transported the trailer, were charged with manslaughter and other offences, and several other people have been arrested.
context_section_description: The lorry cab, a Scania R-series, was registered in Bulgaria in 2017 in the name of a company owned by an Irish citizen, but had not returned there since, according to the Bulgarian foreign ministry. The refrigerated trailer was leased on 15 October from a rental company in County Monaghan. Refrigerated trailers can be kept airtight and frozen to preserve perishables, which could lead to an occupant dying of suffocation or hypothermia should they become trapped inside.
  The lorry cab and the trailer arrived separately in Purfleet, Essex, from where they travelled together the short distance to Grays. Police believe that the cab was driven from Northern Ireland on 19 October. It then travelled through the Republic of Ireland to Dublin, and from there by sea to Holyhead in Wales, from where it was driven to Purfleet. The trailer was loaded onto the freight ferry Clementine in Zeebrugge in Belgium. GPS data showed it had previously travelled to Dunkirk and Lille in France and Bruges in Belgium. It arrived in Purfleet, a town with a port on the Thames, at around 00:30 on 23 October and was picked up with the cab there about half-an-hour later.
  The Zeebrugge port chairman said it was "highly unlikely" the migrants entered the trailer there, and that breaking the seal, loading 39 people and resealing the trailer without being noticed would be "virtually impossible".
caption: A refrigerated articulated lorry, similar to the type involved in the incident
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