British police find more illegal immigrants

Within days of 35 Afghan Sikhs being discovered in a container that arrived in Essex from Belgium, the British police apprehended another lot of foreign nationals in a lorry in south-west England on Tuesday and arrested one German national.

Within days of 35 Afghan Sikhs being discovered in a container that arrived in Essex from Belgium, the British police apprehended another lot of foreign nationals in a lorry in south-west England on Tuesday and arrested one German national.

The Avon and Somerset police said 15 foreign nationals were discovered, most of them from Eritrea but the group also included some from ‘Kashmir’.

A police spokeswoman told HT that it was not clear if they were from the Indian or Pakistan part of Kashmir, but included 11 men in their late teens and early 20s, three women and a 15-year-old boy.

Paramedics were treating the group for dehydration and immigration authorities had been called in. The German driver of the lorry was arrested on suspicion of facilitating the unlawful entry of the group into the UK.

Many such incidents are reported to involve lorries coming into the UK from Calais into Dover.

A Home Office spokesperson said border and immigration officers were supporting police as they investigated.

She said: “These criminals are constantly modifying their tactics in an attempt to evade strengthened border controls and we are seeing increasingly dangerous methods being used, including the use of sealed or refrigerated vehicles.”