Human trafficking investigation after migrants found in container at Rosslare Harbour

Gardaí have begun an investigation into human trafficking after 14 undocumented migrants were found in a refrigerated container that arrived at Rosslare Europort on Monday morning.

The migrants, had to cut a hole in the side of the container as they were struggling to breathe.

Gardaí are investigating after 10 Kurdish people from Iran and Iraq, including two girls aged six and four years, as well one person from Turkey and three people from Vietnam were discovered on the vessel, coming from Zeebrugge in Belgium, at 3am.

The nine men, three women and two girls have were medically assessed and deemed to be in good health.

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Wexford gardaí and the Garda National Immigration Bureau are liaising with their foreign counterparts through Europol as they investigate the incident and are interviewing the 14 with the help of interpreters. The ship’s crew are assisting gardaí with these inquiries. The migrants are in the care of the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) and Tusla, the child and family agency, is also involved.

It is understood authorities are trying to find out at what point they entered the lorry, which was loaded near Paris before travelling to Zeebrugge.

Speaking at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, President Michael D Higgins said people needed to put more effort into understanding how vulnerabilities arise so that people can be trafficked. “We really have not put enough work into listening to the stories of people ... who are that desperate,” he said.

President Higgins said “if we are to understand migration, we must look at the last straw effects” that make people borrow money and turn to human traffickers”.

Monday’s 999 distress call, it is believed, came from a Kurdish woman in the container, and the captain ordered a search of the ship once docked at Rosslare Europort. The call was picked up by the UK Coastguard who alerted the Irish authority.

An Garda Síochána took over a part of the terminal building in Rosslare to meet the 14 individuals on arrival, while a number of units from the National Ambulance Service were on hand to administer any medical attention required.

The journey from Zeebrugge normally takes from just over 24 hours to as long as two days to complete, and it is understood the vessel was delayed arriving in Rosslare in the early hours of Monday morning due to bad weather.

Wexford Labour TD, Brendan Howlin said the 14 people were sealed in the trailer in a “callous act for profit”.

Mr Howlin said the new infrastructure at Rosslare, due to be completed at the end of next year, will significantly improve checks when in place.

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Wexford Independent councillor Ger Carthy said the people in the container were assessed and cared for at the scene and then transferred to a processing centre in Dublin where translation services were provided, he said.

Cllr Carthy said it had been “quite a challenging and very dangerous trip for anyone to make”.

Meanwhile Rosslare Europort had returned to normal on Wednesday as port service continued.

[ Two children and 12 adult migrants discovered on lorry at Rosslare Harbour ]

Speaking on Morning Ireland, the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association said the people involved would have required assistance to get into the trailer by someone who knew how to manipulate the locks and seals.

Eugene Drennan said it had been “a stroke of luck” there were no fatalities.

The truck was loaded south of Paris, and the driver then took a mandatory break at a service area north of Paris, after which he conducted his checks, Mr Drennan said.

Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said there is “relief” that there were no fatalities.

The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, said she was “extremely concerned” by the incident.

The incident is not the first in Co Wexford in which migrants were found after spending long periods in heavy goods vehicles over the years.

In 2001, while stopped in Rosslare, a lorry driver transporting what was supposed to be a load of furniture from Milan noticed the customs seal on his load was broken. Gardaí were called, and discovered 13 people who had been in the container for more than five days.

Eight of them, including four children, had suffocated. The migrants had paid traffickers up to €15,000 to be transported West.

A trial of the people smugglers at the centre of the 2001 incident heard the group made up to €12 million a year from human trafficking. Two ringleaders were convicted in a Belgian court in 2003, but fled.

One was apprehended in 2012, but the court annulled the conviction. Some of the survivors of the tragedy settled in Dublin and Wexford.

More recently, in 2019, 16 men aged between about 20 and 35 from Iraq and Iran, were found on the back of a lorry on a ferry sailing from France to Co Wexford. The men, between the ages of about 20 and 35 years.

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