SIMON PARRY visits the region of Vietnam where 39 migrants began their journey

Every so often a tragedy reverberates around the world bringing political soul-searching and urgent demands for action. 

When 39 Vietnamese migrants were found suffocated after suffering slow and agonising deaths in a refrigerated lorry in Essex in October, politicians promised swift justice and a crackdown on traffickers.

Above all else it was agreed that it should never happen again.

Yet when The Mail on Sunday travelled last week to the migrants’ homeland, an impoverished region in northern Vietnam, we found that criminal gangs have already resumed their lucrative activities and, by all accounts, business is as brisk as ever.

Ten have been arrested but only one person has been named and charged, fuelling suspicions that wealthy gang leaders have cosy relations with local officials in the communist country, which is regularly ranked among the most corrupt in the world. Police are pictured at the scene

Here, such is the fierce desire to begin life anew in England, many consider the dangers of being trafficked thousands of miles a risk worth taking, and the deaths simply bad luck.

In dusty towns and villages, residents shook their heads in sympathy as they spoke of the ‘unlucky ones’ who perished in the container before quickly changing the subject to recount what they see as more common stories of friends and relatives living happy and comfortable lives overseas.

‘Everyone here knows someone who is either on their way to England or preparing to leave,’ said a tea-seller in the northern port city of Haiphong. 

She says she has a cousin and a young nephew already living in the UK. ‘No one I’ve heard of has turned back or cancelled their journeys.’

Pham Thi Tra My was a victim of the Essex lorry deaths

Hoang Van Tiep  was a victim of the Essex lorry deaths

Pham Thi Tra My, left, and Hoang Van Tiep, right, are two victims of the Essex lorry deaths

After the tragedy the district around Haiphong found itself at the centre of a global police inquiry into the smuggling ring responsible for the UK’s biggest murder investigation since the 7/7 London bombings. 

Significantly, despite the vast network of brokers and traffickers inside Vietnam involved in sending the 39 migrants to their deaths, only a handful of people have so far been held to account.

Ten have been arrested but only one person has been named and charged, fuelling suspicions that wealthy gang leaders have cosy relations with local officials in the communist country, which is regularly ranked among the most corrupt in the world.

Human-trafficking expert Matt Friedman, who heads an anti-slavery organisation monitoring trafficking across Asia, said that rather than stalling operations, traffickers in Vietnam responded to the tragedy by stepping up their efforts, reassuring families already saving up that it was safe to send their children overseas.

Tran Ngoc Hieu, 17, was a victim of the Essex lorry deaths. In dusty towns and villages, residents shook their heads in sympathy as they spoke of the 'unlucky ones' who perished in the container

Tran Ngoc Hieu, 17, was a victim of the Essex lorry deaths. In dusty towns and villages, residents shook their heads in sympathy as they spoke of the ‘unlucky ones’ who perished in the container

‘When it became clear the victims were from Vietnam, brokers for the traffickers immediately began to downplay the risk. One of them said, ‘You have more of a risk of being hit by lightning than being harmed on a migrant journey,’ Friedman said.

Customers in Vietnam are equally undaunted, he added. ‘They told us, ‘We all know the vehicles can be dangerous but we will get in them anyway. Migration accidents happen but not often. The risk is worth the potential reward.’ ‘

It is a view shared by Tran Ngoc Truong, who lives in Walthamstow, East London, and whose 17-year-old nephew Tran Ngoc Hieu was among the victims. 

As he joined relatives in Vietnam placing offerings at a makeshift shrine in Hai Duong, an agricultural town 50 miles east of the capital Hanoi, he told us: ‘It was a terrible accident, but it hasn’t changed anything. People will continue to come to England from Vietnam in this way – and they are coming already.’

Truong, 41, who runs a nail bar in London, helped his family raise the £40,000 for Hieu’s fatal journey. He said his family feel pain rather than guilt.

‘There was no future for Hieu here in Vietnam,’ Truong explained. ‘As his uncle living overseas, I wanted to help him come to England for a better life.

‘I only wanted the best for him. Everyone who comes to England from Vietnam comes the same way. What happened was just very bad luck.’

The rising tide of illegal migration is driven by the irresistible success stories carried back to Vietnam by people such as Truong: smartly dressed, articulate, and comfortably off after 16 years in England. 

‘I want to tell you the truth because the things people in England say about Vietnamese migrants simply aren’t true,’ he told us. 

‘All the stories about them ending up as slave labour and sex workers are lies. They aren’t even one or two per cent true. Most find a better life, and that is why they keep coming.’

Hieu, a talented footballer and avid Manchester United fan who was raised by his grandparents after his parents separated when he was a small boy, was just 16 when he left Vietnam in June 2018 with tickets for games in the World Cup in Russia as a cover story for the first part of his journey to Britain.

Poignantly, his ashes arrived home in Hai Duong in late November on what would have been his 18th birthday.

Hieu’s journey to Britain demonstrates the extraordinary risks young people from Vietnam are prepared to take to get to Britain and how friends and relatives are prepared to spend the equivalent of years of rural earnings in what they regard as long-term investments for future generations of the family.

Men in the dock over tragedy

In the early hours of October 23, emergency services were called to an industrial estate in Grays, Essex, shortly after a lorry arrived on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium. 

Ten teenagers were among 39 Vietnamese nationals whose bodies were discovered in the vehicle’s refrigerated trailer.

The lorry’s driver, Maurice Robinson, has since admitted conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May 1, 2018, and October 24, 2019, and acquiring criminal property – namely cash. The charges relate to the 39 deaths. 

The 25-year-old, of Craigavon in Northern Ireland, has yet to enter pleas to 39 counts of manslaughter, conspiracy to commit human trafficking and transferring criminal property. 

Judge Andrew Edis has set a further hearing for March 16 with a provisional trial on October 5. 

A suspected accomplice of Robinson has also appeared in court and denied his part in the alleged plot. 

Christopher Kennedy, 23, pleaded not guilty to human trafficking and conspiracy to assist in unlawful immigration between May 1, 2018, and October 24, 2019.

Kennedy, of Armagh, Northern Ireland, appeared at the Old Bailey earlier this month, where Robinson also appeared via video link from Belmarsh Prison.

The process of identifying the bodies in the container took just over two weeks, using fingerprints, DNA, dental records and distinctive body markings to confirm the victims’ names. 

All the victims have been confirmed to have come from central or northern Vietnam, with most being in their 20s and 30s, along with two in their early 40s.

The teenager’s harrowing 17-month ordeal saw him held for months at a time with other migrants in squalid, crowded basements in Russia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic, being passed from gang to gang before finally reaching Belgium for the fatal last leg of his journey.

‘The conditions were inhuman and he told us it was a very bad life,’ said Truong. 

‘They kept 20 to 30 of them in a basement. They would be given noodles or rice in one big bowl once a day. There was nowhere to wash and he suffered from eczema and skin problems because of the conditions he was in.’

The family paid traffickers £20,000 when Hieu reached Europe and another £20,000 when they received word he had left Belgium for Britain. 

‘He messaged his grandparents to say he was on his way to England and he was very excited,’ said Truong. 

‘It was the last we ever heard from him.’

Truong, 41, who runs a nail bar in London, helped his family raise the £40,000 for Hieu's fatal journey. He said his family feel pain rather than guilt

Truong, 41, who runs a nail bar in London, helped his family raise the £40,000 for Hieu’s fatal journey. He said his family feel pain rather than guilt

Truong contacted police after hearing about the migrant deaths in Essex and realising the times matched his nephew’s departure. 

He provided a DNA sample before being told the next day it was a match. He then identified Hieu’s body and brought his ashes home after a cremation in the UK. 

‘As soon as it happened, the traffickers cut off all contact,’ said Truong. 

‘I tried to call them again and again but their phones were dead and we had no way to reach them.’

Asked why his nephew was so keen to go to Britain, Truong said: ‘In England it is much easier for people who have travelled to the country illegally to go undetected. There are no ID checks like there are in Europe. If you are an illegal migrant you can go around freely. The police won’t stop you and ask for identity paper and you don’t have to worry about getting caught. In other European countries they will stop you and arrest you and deport you if you don’t have ID papers. In Holland, you will end up in a refugee camp.’

Fifty miles east in the port city of Haiphong – home to the some of the wealthiest kingpins of the trafficking industry – the parents of 15-year-old Dinh Dinh Binh, the youngest of the victims of the Essex tragedy, were nervous and edgy as they invited the MoS into their home, shooting glances at the door and refusing to talk about the traffickers who sent Binh to his death alongside Hieu.

But his mother, Nguyet, her face etched with a profound grief, acknowledges more young people are already following in the footsteps of Binh, who was only 14 when he set out for England in the summer of 2018. 

‘It is terrifying to think young people are still trying to get to England in the way our son did,’ she says.

Anna Bui Thi Nhung

Nguyen Dinh Luong

Anna Bui Thi Nhung, left, and Nguyen Dinh Luong, right, were victims of the Essex lorry deaths.

Friedman, who led a United Nations regional project on trafficking in Southeast Asia, said one of the biggest challenges in tackling the flow of migrants from Vietnam was the massive number of people who still want a new life for their children and who are easily manipulated by sophisticated traffickers and their brokers.

‘The pool of people who haven’t been exposed to the pain and suffering of the families of those 39 people is huge,’ he said. 

‘For them, hope springs eternal. They desperately want something beyond what they have in Vietnam.

‘They have this idea that their lives, and their family’s lives, are going to change, and they don’t pay attention to the red flags presented to them by family friends, newspapers or the government.’

Friedman acknowledged that, for some, the terrible journey does end well. 

‘In reality, there are probably 30 per cent of people who end up in a fairly good situation, 30 per cent who end up in horrible circumstances, completely isolated and manipulated, and a certain number in between. There is a bell-shaped curve. A large percentage of people who end up going overseas lie about their experience when they come back to save face. They don’t want to admit things have gone badly. And the traffickers don’t really care what happens at the other end.’

Others caught in the grey area in between, such as Truong, defend their role in trafficking relatives abroad. 

‘Their attitude is, ‘I tried to help this person. I’m noble,’ ‘ he said. ‘ 

‘I’m the person who helped get them to his point. I can’t help it that the lorry driver did what he did.’ ‘

For the parents of Binh, meanwhile, all they have left in place of their son is an aching void of regret. 

As he shows us Binh’s simple shrine in an upstairs bedroom, his merchant seaman father Thai said: ‘I was away from home so much of the time he was young and his mother was too busy working to give him enough attention. We don’t even have photos to remember him. We spent too little time with him, and that is what torments us most.’

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk