Vietnam Police take DNA from relatives of suspected truck victims

A woman wearing a white head band, traditionally worn by relatives of a deceased person during the funeral in Vietnam to show sign of mourning, attends a Sunday Mass at Phu Tang church in Yen Thanh district, Nghe An province, Vietnam on Sunday. The attendees pray for the victims of the UK lorry deaths in which local villagers are feared to be among the ill-fated migrants (AP Photo)

CAN LOC, Vietnam (Reuters): Police in Vietnam took hair and blood samples yesterday to get DNA from relatives of people feared to be among the 39 who died in the back of a truck near London last week, their family members said.

The bodies were found last Wednesday in a truck container in Grays, about 32 km (20 miles) east of central London and British Police are still trying to establish the identity of victims who in many cases lacked identity documents.

In a poor rice-growing area of northern Vietnam, communities have been plunged into mourning with their hope all but lost for relatives who had set out to seek better lives in Europe and were thought to have been aboard the truck.

The hashtag #RIP39 was trending in Vietnam on widely-used Facebook.

Distraught, Nguyen Dinh Gia said he feared there was very little chance he would ever again see his 20-year-old son, Nguyen Dinh Luong, who had been trying to get to Britain after first making it to France.

“Police from the Ministry of Public Security came to get DNA samples, our hair and blood,” Nguyen Dinh Gia told Reuters at Can Loc in Ha Tinh province, where sympathisers gathered at the simple house amid lush rice fields to console the family.

“I advised him not to go because I told him that even though our family had always had nothing and our children were always in hardship, but we brought them up just fine,” Nguyen said.

The father of Pham Thi Tra My, who sent a last text message to her family in the early hours of Wednesday Vietnam time, said Police had also been to collect samples of blood and hair.

Vietnam’s Government did not respond immediately for a request for comment. Vietnam’s Prime Minister has called for an investigation into the case.

Police in Britain said on Saturday they had charged one man, 25-year-old Maurice Robinson of Craigavon in Northern Ireland, with 39 counts of manslaughter and other offences including conspiracy to traffic people.

Initially, British Police believed the victims were Chinese, but later sought help from the Vietnamese community. Chinese and Vietnamese officials were both working closely with British Police, the countries’ embassies said. A Catholic priest in the remote town of Yen Thanh in Nghe An province said on Saturday that he believed most of the dead were likely from Vietnam.British Police have said very few of the victims were carrying official identification and that they hope to identify the dead through fingerprints, dental records and DNA, as well as photos from friends and relatives.