Thirty-nine bodies were found in a lorry container in an industrial estate 32 kilometres east of London on Wednesday, prompting an outcry against people smuggling in the UK.
British police have launched a murder investigation after the discovery at the Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, Essex, in the early hours.
Emergency services were called out but all 39 people, including a teenager, in the container were pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver of the lorry, a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. He has not been charged or identified.
Essex Police's deputy chief constable, Pippa Mills, described the incident as "an absolute tragedy and very sad day for Essex Police and the local community".
She said it could take a “lengthy process” to identify the victims and where they are from.
Essex police set up a casualty bureau with a hot line for people to call if they were concerned about relatives, to try to identify the victims.
Police initially said they believed the lorry had come from Bulgaria, entering the UK from Holyhead in Wales on Saturday. Holyhead is one of the main ports for ferries from Ireland.
But they later said that information was incorrect and the truck had travelled from Zeebrugge, Belgium on a ferry arriving at the port of Purfleet on the River Thames in eastern England.
It docked in the Thurrock area, near Grays, about 12.30am on Wednesday for 35 minutes before departing, Essex Police said.
CCTV footage published by UK media showed the lorry being driven towards the industrial estate where it was found at 1.10am. Police were called to the scene at 1.40am.
As bystanders gathered around the scene of the discovery, police announced that the lorry container with the bodies inside would be moved to a secure location in nearby Tillbury Docks.
Ms Mills said the move would allow the bodies to "be recovered while preserving the dignity of the victims".
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in Parliament that he was appalled by the news and was being kept updated by the police.
"We know that this trade is going on," Mr Johnson said. "All such traders in human beings should be hunted down and brought to justice."
Police have not formally connected the incident with people smuggling.
The MP representing the constituency surrounding Grays described the news as "sickening" on Twitter.
"To put 39 people into a locked metal container shows a contempt for human life that is evil," Jackie Doyle-Price told Parliament.
"The best thing we can do in memory of those victims is to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice."
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the deaths were an unbelievable tragedy that needed answers.
"Can we just think for a moment of what it must have been like for those 39 people, obviously in a desperate and dangerous situation, for their lives to end, suffocated to death in a container?" Mr Corbyn said.
Bulgarian authorities confirmed the lorry was registered in the country.
"The Scania truck was registered in Varna [on the east coast] under the name of a company owned by an Irish citizen," a spokesman for the Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
"Police said that it is highly unlikely they are Bulgarians."
Police said they believed the trailer of the truck had originated in Ireland.
The Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, told Parliament that an investigation would be undertaken if it was established that the lorry had passed through the country.
“I think everyone’s thoughts in this House this morning are with those who are dead, those who have passed on and their families,” Mr Varadkar said.
Zoe Smith, spokeswoman for the Medaille Trust, which provides refuge to victims of slavery, said it worked with clients who had been trafficked to the UK through different transport methods.
"We had one client from China who was smuggled into the UK aged eight, and all he can recall of his journey was being in 'a moving room' for two weeks," Ms Smith told The National.
“What that was is anybody’s guess. My guess is a shipping container but we don’t know for sure.”
Wednesday’s discovery is the biggest tragedy involving illegal immigrants in the UK for nearly 20 years.
In 2000, 60 Chinese immigrants were found in the back of a lorry in Dover on the English south coast.
Fifty-eight of them had suffocated to death, while two survived.
The lorry driver, a Dutch national, was jailed for his part in an organised people smuggling operation.
A tragedy of that scale was not seen again in Europe until 2015, when 71 people were found dead in an abandoned lorry on an Austrian motorway.
The bodies on board were men, women and children from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
The vehicle was thought to have been part of a Bulgarian-Hungarian people smuggling operation.
Conservative MPs who have publicly revealed sending letters of no confidence
- Steve Baker
- Peter Bone
- Ben Bradley
- Andrew Bridgen
- Maria Caulfield
- Simon Clarke
- Philip Davies
- Nadine Dorries
- James Duddridge
- Mark Francois
- Chris Green
- Adam Holloway
- Andrea Jenkyns
- Anne-Marie Morris
- Sheryll Murray
- Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Laurence Robertson
- Lee Rowley
- Henry Smith
- Martin Vickers
- John Whittingdale
Company%20Profile
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The Matrix Resurrections
Director: Lana Wachowski
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jessica Henwick
Rating:****
Scoreline
Ireland 16 (Tries: Stockdale Cons: Sexton Pens: Sexton 3)
New Zealand 9 (Pens: Barrett 2 Drop Goal: Barrett)
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
MATCH INFO
Fixture: Thailand v UAE, Tuesday, 4pm (UAE)
TV: Abu Dhabi Sports
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'
Rating: 1 out of 4
Running time: 81 minutes
Director: David Blue Garcia
Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham
