Relative of stowaways describes journey

Some of the eight asylum seekers who died in a freight container became unconscious a short while after leaving port in Belgium because of a lack of oxygen, according to a relative who spoke to the survivors in hospital in Wexford.

One of the men who died had tried to attract attention by banging the inside of the container before falling into a coma.

"I don't understand how no one discovered them until they came to Ireland".

The relative added: "They got to Bosnia and paid some of the money there. They had a deal to bring them to Belgium. They paid the rest of the money in Belgium and got into the container at the port there.

"They thought they were going to Dover. They were told they would be in the container for three or four hours. Somewhere along the line they got mixed up or got into the wrong container and there was a very rough sea."

Asked what conditions were like in the container, he said they had described it as being like a bad dream.

He said all six of those eight deceased positively identified by Monday night were Kurds from the south-eastern part of Turkey.

The family of the man who lost his wife and two children was from the city of Elbistan, in the Kurdish Kalnramanmaras region, he said.

This family has been named by the Turkish community newspaper Suriat, based in London

According to the paper, Mr Hasan Kalendergil (32) lost his son Kalender (16) and daughter Zelidi (10), as well as his wife, Kadriye (28), in the tragedy.

The names of the others are not yet known, though one of the survivors, a 32-year-old Kurd, was named by the interviewee as Karede Guler.

The relative said his family had borrowed and saved to pay "about £5,000" for their passage to Britain.

Post-mortem results released yesterday showed the deceased died of inoxia, or lack of oxygen to the brain.

Garda∅ said the woman who lost her husband and children was told yesterday afternoon that she was the sole survivor of her family. She was told by a doctor with the help of an interpreter.

Meanwhile, Mr Kalendergil was told he had lost his wife and children at about 5 p.m. yesterday. The surviving teenager, (17), was said to be travelling alone to an older brother living in London.

All had planned to make new lives in Britain.

"They were brave, or maybe stupid, but if you were in a hopeless situation it is amazing the things you will go through", the relative said.