Check this story for details. What a horrific story. Not an opinion on my behalf, just thought I’d share this with you.
Only two people survived. It’s impossible to imagine what they went through in that truck.
I heard about this on the radio this morning. Good god. And they think they died of asphyxiation. So easily preventable. It’s times like this when I am so thankful I live in a stable country.
I find it shocking that people would be so desparate to leave Belgium. It always seemed like such a nice country.
Belgium?
They’re chinese, according to the London Evening Standard.
The truck came to Dover via Zerbrugge (sp?).
Bloody Straw and Blair using the tragedy to tout the importance of their policies, which they insist are aimed at the smugglers, not the smuggled. Give it a day at least guys.
I don’t know, Widdecombe was questioning government policies before 7am this morning. Now that’s tasteless.
Yes, but you expect that.
Eh, I read the thing but I’m still not sure I follow it. Belgian smugglers using a Dutch-registered truck were smuggling Orientals into England? Presumably the Orientals were paying for the privilege, like paying coyotes to smuggle you across the Rio Grande?
I guess I had the impression that the UK had fairly liberal immigration policies, that it was only the U.S. that got all paranoid about green cards and work permits. Why do these folks need to go to such lengths to get in? No employable skills, or what?
The UK’s immigration policies are about as strict as the US’s. Many of these people do have employable skills, but without being able to find an employer to sponsor them - no easy trick, because the employer has to document efforts to fill the position with an EEA national first - they can pretty much forget about getting a work permit. Their only hope is being granted refugee status once in the UK, and most of them probably won’t get that either … but the lengths some of them go to to get into the country should give you an indication of what kind of alternatives they have.
It turns out that the truck belonged to a Dutch company that registered with the Chamber of Commerce last thursday. They’re supposed to be a vegetable carrier. Rrrright.
The victims were Chinese, and didn’t flee Belgium - the ferry merely departs in Zeebrugge. FWIW, the harbours of Antwerp (Belgium) and Rotterdam (Netherlands) are among the largest in the world and have a LOT of castaways on a daily basis. My guess is these Chinese must have arrived in one of those harbours on a container, and made it through customs.
The Dutch company that supplied the truck sounds like a complete fraud, of course. I hope they catch the bastards and throw them inside for a long, long time.
The truck was a refridgerated one, which means it is basically 99% airtight. I suppose that explains the 58 bodies. This is plain murder.
When I hear our citizens whining about our country, I just think about what can be so terrible about another land that it’s citizens would risk death to leave.
And then I want to give them a huge dope slap, and a one way ticket out of here.
I haven’t been able to get this out of my mind since I read your post this morning, Coldfire. Asphyxiation, not hypothermia? I cannot imagine the chaos that must have been going on when people began to realize something was terribly wrong.
What bothered me most about the report was the line that the “victims would appear to be oriental.” Could they not tell or where the victims features so distorted as a result of their horrifying demise? I’m hoping, rather, that the line is just falling back on the usual reporterese for “We think, rather than know for certain that everyone was oriental.”
My god.
What he said. And, a big kick in the rear to help them on their way.
America, Love it, or Leave it.
What a horrible,preventable tragedy this is. Thank you, Coldy for sharing it with us. I’m going to go hug my kids, and send Mr Bear another email telling him I love him for being who he is.
I don’t want to sound like a bastard, but what’s the big deal?
I would have deported 'em, had they been alive.
It’s not that hard to immigrate legally.
I just can’t get over the idea that anyone would put another human being in that situation - “You want out of the country? Sure, here, we’ll lock you in the back of this refrigeration truck. With no water. Then, in case being in a sealed refrigeration truck isn’t bad enough, we’ll turn off the refrigeration. It’s only 90 degrees outside, no problem. You will only be in there for, say, 18 hours…” (At least, that’s what I read in my morning paper, which also speculated the cause of death as dehydration, not asphyxiation.)
Illegal immigrants or not, regardless of what they were trying to do or where they were trying to go, no human being deserves to be treated like that, or to die like that.
I can only imagine the horror experienced by the two people who were still alive, and by the officers who opened the truck to discover all of this.
Peter B,
58 people died a horrible death. THAT"S the big deal.
And sorry, you do sound like a bastard.
I don’t think so. One of the reasons so many immigrants want to come to America is because we are given the liberty of criticizing what we don’t love about the place without have to leave.
I don’t like the huge gap between the haves and the have nots in this country. I don’t like the undercover racism that eats silently at this nation until it periodically blows up. I don’t like the way elections can be bought by the richest candidate. Which one of you is gonna dope slap me, give me a big kick in the rear and make me leave?
As for the OP, new accounts say the victims where screaming and kicking the truck walls. What kind of person could keep driving around, listening to the terror and ignoring it?
Well, Pink Slinky, I can see that I didn’t clarify myself well enough. Let me try again. If all you want to do is criticise America, just bitch about what’s wrong with it, then, yes, by all means, feel free to leave. On the other hand, if you love this country and want to work to change what you don’t like about it, then, please stay and I’ll help you. There’s a HUGE difference between the two.
Also, consider my perspective for a moment. I was raised as a military brat, and have lived in or visited more countries than I can count off the top of my head. Take the worst poverty-stricken area in this country, and you won’t even come close to the horrifying poverty I lived right next to in the Philippines, or down in Chile; just to name two examples. I can go on and on, but it would tear your heart out, what I saw in those countries. And no possibility of change in many of their lifetimes. They didn’t even have the luxury of complaining about their lot in life.
So, yes, I feel well qualified to say that this is without a doubt, one of the greatest countries in the world. And, pardon me for not wanting to hear it trashed when there is so much worse out there. Talk is cheap. Quit bitching<btw, I agree with what you said, I’m trying to change it in my part of the country> and do something about changing what you don’t like. Or leave. That’s all I meant by my earlier post.
I’m very sorry for hijacking this thread, Coldfire. Forgive me, please.
Coldy, please forgive, but I too must hijack, briefly.
Pink, like Purplebear, I too must clarify.
I too, was raised in the military, and I gave 17 years of my life in active service to my country. I have seen and lived in other countries.
The U.S. is the greatest country on the face of this planet, predicated on a system of government never before seen. In terms of national age, we are still a very young country.
I agree with you on many points. I too see things going on here I do not like, but I don’t idly bitch about them. My love for this country goes beyond jingoism. My loyalty is to the Constitution, and to the ideals that it puts forward, and for which it and our flag stand. Period.
I have no love for politics, or for those who individually, or through special interest groups would twist the Constitution to their own whims, or buy their way into power.
If you don’t like it, work within the system to change it.
If you are one to sit on your keester and whine, then yes, by all means, leave. We have enough parasites.
As a whole, and based on my personal observations, the average American citizen is spoiled rotten, myself included. This brings me back closer to my first post in answer to the OP.
Those people in that truck, regardless of nationality and race, deemed risking their lives worthwhile, in order to achieve a level of freedom otherwise impossible to them. I weep for them; they symbolize the indomitable spirit of man, that refuses to be caged or crushed. They represent the cream of the crop; those willing to abandon all they knew, for the glimmer of a chance of improving their lot. It is no disgrace to them that the method chosen led to their demise.
Thanks, Coldfire. End Hijack.
[Hijack] Thank you, VB, for saying it even better than I could. That’s what I was trying to say also.[/Hijack]
Sorry, Coldy, this won’t happen again.