List of migrant vehicle incidents in Europe

This article is a list of illegal migrant vehicle incidents in Europe, involving injury and/or loss of life. Illegal migrants to Europe who have boarded transport vehicles have occasionally been injured or killed in crashes or suffocation incidents. In addition to the illegal migrants themselves, drivers and passengers of vehicles have also been injured or killed – either unintentionally or deliberately – as a result of migrant activity.

See also: Timeline of the European migrant crisis and List of migrant vessel incidents on the Mediterranean Sea

List
Date Location Passengers Injuries Deaths Description
18 June 2000 Dover, Kent, United Kingdom 60 2 58 58 Chinese illegal migrants were found dead in the back of a Dutch-registered lorry.[1][2]
Main article: 2000 Dover incident
8 December 2001 Drinagh, Wexford, Ireland 13 5 8 The victims were found in a business park in an intermodal container carrying furniture from Italy. They entered the container the night of December 3–4 at a truck stop in Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium. The plan was for a three-hour voyage from Zeebrugge to Dover rather than a 102-hour voyage in stormy weather to Belview Harbour at Waterford. The dead were all Turks, including four children; the survivors were Turkish, Algerian, and Kosovo Albanian. In 2003 a Belgian court sentenced a London-based Turk and six Belgium-based Kosovars and Moroccans to between two and ten years' imprisonment, the longest in absentia.[3]
7 July 2003 Worcestershire, UK 3 0 3 A minibus carrying agricultural workers collided with a Great Western train in Worcestershire. Three men died. The men were from India, Bangladesh and Iraq.[4]
17 August 2003 Poole, Dorset, UK 3 0 1 Iraqi Kurdish illegal migrant found dead and 2 arrested when police stopped a lorry in Poole. The dead man had been crushed by the movement of metal containers.[4]
21 April 2005 M40, near Warwick, UK 1 0 1 A man died instantly when hit by a car on the M40. Apparently he had leapt from a van and was hit by the car.[5]
5 October 2005 Haddon, Peterborough, UK 6 0 1 Vietnamese illegal migrant jumped or fell from lorry and died. Police arrested five others, all believed to be Vietnamese.[5]
24 November 2005 Peterborough, UK 15 14 1 Death after crash of minibus containing migrant workers.[5]
23 April 2006 A14 in Cambridgeshire, UK 1 0 1 Death of man dragged for some distance under lorry.[5]
21 August 2015 Amstetten, Lower Austria, Austria 30 24 0 24 illegal migrants were injured (3 seriously) when the truck they were travelling in overturned near the Austrian village of Amstetten. There were 30 illegal migrants in the vehicle at the time.[6]
24 August 2015 Nickelsdorf, Burgenland, Austria 70–90 37 0 37 illegal migrants were injured in an accident outside the village of Nickelsdorf in Austria. There were between 70 and 90 illegal migrants in the two trucks involved.[7]
27 August 2015 Ost Autobahn, Burgenland, Austria 71 0 71 Austrian police discovered a truck along the A4 highway in Austria and found 71 deceased illegal migrants, including eight children. The truck, which had been parked on the shoulder in between the villages Neusiedl and Parndorf, had been noticed by an employee of the ASFiNAG highway agency who observed liquid seeping out and informed police.[8] All migrants had suffocated within hours of boarding.[9] The driver claimed he did not know how to keep the doors partially shut, in a way that air could seep in. It is not clear when he became aware that the illegal migrants were deceased.[10] In June 2018, the driver and three others were given 25-year sentences on homicide charges. They stated that they regretted what had happened and had not wanted the victims to die.[9]
Main article: Burgenland corpses discovery
29 September 2015 Calais, Hauts-de-France, France 3 0 1 An Iraqi illegal migrant was found crushed to death attempting to reach the UK by illegal means via a Hungarian lorry driver near Calais, France when he inspected his cargo after "braking for reasons unknown". Two other members of the man's family were found on board uninjured.[11]
23 March 2016 Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom 26 2 0 A woman collapsed and was taken to hospital while a boy suffered a leg injury after 26 illegal migrants were found in the back of a Romanian-registered refrigerated lorry in Canterbury, United Kingdom. The lorry had been travelling to the UK from Spain.[12]
21 May 2016 Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom 28 1 0 One man required urgent medical attention for inhalation of hazardous fumes and several others received medical attention after 28 illegal migrants were found in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Portsmouth, United Kingdom.[13]
18 October 2016 Ashford, Kent, United Kingdom 1 0 1 An Eritrean man was found dead when a Hungarian registered lorry stopped at a cafe in Ashford. French authorities had checked the vehicle in Calais, removing 'around 10' illegal migrants from Eritrea from the lorry.[14]
20 June 2017 A16 autoroute near Guemps, Hauts-de-France, France 0 0 1 A Polish van driver was killed after his vehicle slammed into the back of an articulated lorry stopped by a group of Eritrean illegal migrants, who had blocked the A16 autoroute with tree limbs to break into vehicles. The vehicle exploded upon impact, killing the driver instantly. Nine illegal migrants were arrested.[15]
25 July 2017 A16 autoroute near Calais, Hauts-de-France, France 0 1 0 An HGV driver was left hospitalised with severe injuries after being beaten over the head with a brick by a group of illegal migrants who had stopped his truck; the illegal migrants then hijacked the driver's vehicle and drove it towards the port, but were apprehended by police.[16]
29 December 2017 Calais, Hauts-de-France, France 1 0 1 An Eritrean illegal migrant was crushed to death in northern France after the truck in which he was stowed away under a several-tonne pile of paper rolls crashed.[17]
17 November 2018 Brussels-North railway station, Brussels 1 0 1 A Chadian illegal migrant was crushed to death under coach when it started moving. The incident was not discovered until a routine check at Folkestone.[18]
22 May 2019 Vojvodina, Serbia 4 2 2 Two illegal migrants died of heatstroke and suffocation and two others were in serious condition after hiding in a tanker truck in northern Serbia, near the border with Hungary. The driver discovered them when he opened the tank and saw them lying unconscious. At least two of the illegal migrants were from Afghanistan.[19]
6 July 2019 A29 Highway, Netherlands 8 0 1 An illegal migrant died after a fall or jump from a Romanian truck onto a highway in South Holland, the Netherlands. All of the illegal migrants in the truck were presumably from Eritrea.[20][21]
25 August 2019 Slovenian–Croatian border 12 0 1 A woman died after a truck carrying 12 illegal migrants fell into a river after the driver fled a checkpoint stop near the Slovenian border in Croatia. The illegal migrants were from Egypt and Pakistan.[22]
26 August 2019 Alexandroupolis, Greece 16 10 6 Six illegal migrants were killed and another 10 injured when a smuggling jeep carrying them through northern Greece crashed into an irrigation ditch.[23][24]
23 October 2019 Grays, Essex, United Kingdom 39 0 39 Ambulance crews found 39 Vietnamese people dead inside a lorry trailer.[25][26]
Main article: Essex lorry deaths

References
  1. "58 dead in port lorry". BBC News. 19 June 2000. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  2. "Dover victims fought for air". BBC News. 23 June 2000. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  3. Cahill, Ann (26 February 2003). "Taxi driver admits part in transport of human cargo". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 25 October 2019.; Staunton, Denis (26 March 2003). "Seven are sentenced for human smuggling into State". The Irish Times.; Zagaris, Bruce (1 June 2003). "Belgian Court Convicts Foreign Gang of Trafficking in Human Beings". International Enforcement Law Reporter. 19 (6): 214. Retrieved 25 October 2019 – via www.ielr.com.; Looby, David (12 December 2011). "Human trafficking victims honoured on their 10th anniversary". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 25 October 2019.; Byrne, Andrew (30 November 2013). "Wexford's tragic cargo". The Irish Times.
  4. "Roll call of deaths of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants, 2002-2004". www.irr.org.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  5. "Roll call of deaths of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants, 2005 onwards". www.irr.org.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  6. "Unfall mit Schlepperauto: 24 Verletze". ORF Niederösterreich. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  7. "37 Verletzte nach Schlepperauto-Kollision". ORF. 24 August 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  8. "Dutzende tote Flüchtlinge in Schlepperfahrzeug im Burgenland entdeckt". Der Standard. APA. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  9. "Four jailed for 25 years in Austria migrant death truck case". Reuters. 2018-06-14. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  10. Bell, Bethany; Thorpe, Nick (2016-08-25). "Austria's migrant disaster: Why did 71 die?". Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  11. "Iraqi migrant found crushed to death in truck at Calais". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  12. Greatrex, Courtney (2016-03-23). "Dozens of refugees found stuffed in the back of lorries in Kent". mirror. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  13. Mendick, Robert; Willgress, Lydia (2016-05-21). "28 suspected illegal immigrants found in the back of a lorry in Portsmouth". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  14. "Stowaway dies in 'tragic accident' on Hungarian HGV, inquest hears". BBC. 2017-01-05. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  15. Samuel, Henry. "Van driver killed in fireball crash after migrants block Calais road with tree trunks". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  16. "Call for extra security at Calais after truck hijack incident". Truck and Driver. Retrieved 25 October 2019.
  17. "Migrant stowaway crushed by truck's cargo near Calais". www.thelocal.fr. 2017-12-29. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  18. "Migrant died after clothes tangled under coach at Folkestone's Eurotunnel terminal". www.kentonline.co.uk. 2019-04-23. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  19. "Two Migrants Found Dead In Tanker Truck In Serbia". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  20. https://www.hartvannederland.nl/nieuws/2019/migrant-overlijdt-na-val-of-sprong-uit-roemeense-vrachtwagen-op-snelweg/
  21. Death at the border of an exile based in Belgium- 8 July 2019 9 July 2019, www.gettingthevoiceout.org, accessed 9 November 2019
  22. "Migrant dies after van plunges into river in Croatia". AP NEWS. 2019-08-25. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  23. "Greek police say 6 migrants killed, 10 hurt in road crash". www.citynews1130.com. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  24. Two Suspects Arrested After Crash that Killed Six Migrants in Greece Tasos Kokkinidis, 27 August 2019 greece.greekreporter.com, accessed 9 November 2019 6 migrants killed, 10 injured when smuggling car crashes in ditch www.keeptalkinggreece.com, accessed 9 November 2019 Greek police say 6 migrants killed, 10 hurt in road crash 26 August 2019 apnews.com, accessed 9 November 2019
  25. "Essex lorry deaths: 39 bodies found in refrigerated trailer". BBC News. 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  26. Essex lorry deaths: Vietnam offers grieving families loans to return bodies www.bbc.co.uk, 18 November 2019, accessed 8 December 2019
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