Human Smuggling Demands a Human Solution
The U.K.’s ruthless policy to Essex deaths don’t keep the migrants out — it will just lead to more smuggling and more dead bodies.
The scene where 39 bodies were discovered.
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images EuropeThere are many possible responses to the tragic deaths of 39 undocumented migrants found in a refrigerated truck container in Essex. The one from the U.K. government should serve as an example of how to make human smuggling even more dangerous and inhumane.
It’s not clear yet how exactly the immigrants, apparently mostly Vietnamese, died. The relatives of one woman who could have been in the container received panicked text messages from her saying she was suffocating. The family had paid thousands of dollars to send her to the U.K. bypassing the official immigration channels. The truck arrived in the U.K. from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. Clearly, a smuggling operation went horribly wrong.