Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang speaks out about the discovery of 39 bodies in the UK

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang. Photo: Duong Giang/VNA

According to information from the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK, on ​​November 1, Essex County Police announced that there were unidentified Vietnamese victims in the case of 39 people who died in a truck in Northeast London, UK.

Regarding this, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang said:

"This is a serious humanitarian tragedy. We are deeply saddened and would like to send our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and hope they will soon overcome this great pain and loss.

From the beginning of the incident, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directed the Consular Department and the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK to coordinate directly with the relevant agencies and localities of Vietnam and the UK, providing relevant information from Vietnam to support the confirmation of the victim's nationality, opening a hotline, receiving information and being ready to take protective measures in case the victim is a Vietnamese citizen.

The Embassy has also transferred the victim identification results from British police to Vietnamese authorities for cross-checking.

Currently, the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and British police agencies are actively coordinating efforts to verify the identities of the victims, suspected to be Vietnamese nationals, and will soon announce the information.

Vietnam strongly condemns human trafficking, considering it a serious crime that must be punished appropriately. Vietnam calls on countries in the region and around the world to step up cooperation in preventing and combating human trafficking, to prevent similar heartbreaking tragedies from happening again.

We thank and appreciate the British government, relevant agencies and localities in the UK for actively implementing the investigation, providing information on identification and closely coordinating with Vietnamese authorities in the past time.

We hope the British side will soon complete the investigation into the incident and severely punish those responsible for this tragedy."