Irish police announced on Wednesday that they had launched a human trafficking investigation after 14 migrants, including two children, were found inside a refrigerated shipping container at the south-eastern port of Rosslare.
Irish police said in a statement that British authorities had alerted their Irish colleagues after one migrant raised the alarm before the ship arrived at the port, and that nine men, three women and a girl were on board. It added that the two people were in good health after medical tests.
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Irish police announced on Wednesday that they had launched a human trafficking investigation after 14 migrants, including two children, were found inside a refrigerated shipping container at the south-eastern port of Rosslare.
Irish police said in a statement that British authorities had alerted their Irish colleagues after one migrant raised the alarm before the ship arrived at the port, and that nine men, three women and a girl were on board. It added that the two people were in good health after medical tests.
The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately known.
However, broadcaster RTE and the Irish Independent reported that the majority, including the girls, were Kurds from Iran and Iraq, three of them Vietnamese and one Turkish.
They were discovered on Monday when the vehicle was stopped after leaving a ferry arriving from Zeebrugge, Belgium.
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Rosslare Port handles cargo as well as passengers from the UK and Europe, with connections to France and Spain among others.
Irish Transport Minister Eamon Ryan told reporters that the migrants, who were believed to have spent more than 24 hours inside the container, were relieved to be safe.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Dublin would work to process potential asylum applications as quickly as possible, commenting that the country’s “first response is always humanitarian”.
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Irish Road Haulage Association president Eugene Drennan told RTE the container was loaded onto a truck south of Paris before being transferred to Zeebrugge. He added that it was only by chance that a “very bad situation” that would have killed people was avoided.
Kura/CW/Yado