Two trucks, with eleven and nine migrants respectively, were found in Sint-Truiden for the first and in Bruges for the second, in Belgium, announced Saturday the provincial prosecutors.
The eleven people found in Saint-Trond (about 65 km east of Brussels), including women and children, are of African descent, a priori Eritrean, told AFP the prosecution of Limburg. They are in good health. The driver of the truck, who was en route to the UK, had stopped for a technical problem at a garage, and this is where the migrants were discovered.
Meanwhile, police found Saturday morning nine men saying Iraqi nationality, hidden in a truck that was traveling on a fast track in Bruges, said the prosecutor of West Flanders quoted by the agency Belga, saying that these men were in healthy. Police had been warned of the presence of migrants in the truck, which was en route to the port of Zeebrugge, according to the source.
Belgium, a very popular way of passage
Belgium is a popular transit route for migrants and trafficking networks seeking to take advantage of its proximity to the United Kingdom. Police on Tuesday arrested three men of Iraqi origin suspected of trafficking human beings in a van in a parking lot in northwestern Ghent carrying 16 people, according to the Antwerp public prosecutor's office.
Thirty-nine dead were found this week near London in a refrigerated truck whose container had arrived from Zeebrugge. The British police initially indicated that the victims were Chinese but it is possible that Vietnamese are among them. Four people were arrested.
The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation parallel to the British investigations.