Dutch police arrested a suspect last night in connection with the deaths of 58 illegal Chinese immigrants found in a hermetically sealed lorry in Dover on Sunday night. The arrest followed raids on three premises in Rotterdam.
At the same time Kent police issued an appeal to the Chinese community, in Britain and worldwide, for help in identifying the victims, 54 men and four women, all believed to be in their 20s, from the Fujian province of southern China.
Having examined just over half the bodies, Home Office pathologists indicated yesterday that the deceased had all suffocated in an airless container on the warmest day of the year. An inquest will open at the start of next week.
Meanwhile, a Chinese immigrant living in Britain has told reporters that he expects he will be able to identify the body of his 19-year-old cousin, who he says was almost certainly among the victims. Mr Yang Chen (20) added that the group of immigrants may have spent four months reaching Britain overland through Russia and Europe.
Det Supt Dennis McGookin said identifying the victims was his top priority, to which end photographs, fingerprints and DNA samples would if necessary be sent to the authorities in Beijing. At the same time he implored members of the Chinese community who feared or knew they had lost loved ones in the tragedy to come forward.
An emergency hotline has been opened, manned by police helped by interpreters, for people with any information about the deaths, which Kent police are treating as homicide.
As the first details emerged of the deaths, the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said there was now "a huge willingness" among European leaders to stamp out the trade in human smuggling.
Speaking at the EU summit in Portugal, Mr Blair said: "This tragedy has brought home to people the sheer scale of this problem . . . There is a huge willingness now to try and tackle this problem of trade in human misery and human beings."
As the Prime Minister spoke, a full-scale international investigation was under way, with Kent police vowing to bring those responsible to justice.
Confirming that a total of 60 police officers and forensic support staff had been brought into the investigation so far, Mr McGookin refused to make any comment about the lorry-driver, a Dutch national, arrested in Dover on Sunday.
He confirmed that a three-man team of detectives from the Netherlands was in Dover assisting that aspect of the investigation.
The speedy conclusion of the identification process is in turn vital to enabling the Chinese authorities to advance their inquiries into the criminal organisation behind the shipment. Kent police have received the full support of the Chinese embassy and of police in Beijing.
Meanwhile, specially trained police officers and interpreters were on standby to begin questioning the two survivors, who remained under police guard at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.
Contrary to earlier information issued by police, the survivors were not moved on Monday to secure police accommodation.
As the police waited anxiously to begin questioning the two men, the first accounts emerged of their clawing at the walls and screaming for release as they stumbled over bodies in the dark.
Mr Chen, who believes his cousin, Chen Lin, was among the dead, said he had been on the phone to his cousin's devastated mother.
Through an interpreter, Mr Chen said: "All the way through their trip they were allowed to make calls back home to say where they were. The last call was from the Netherlands on Sunday and they said they were travelling to Britain that night."
He added that the man's family "are quite sure he was on that lorry because they have not heard anything from him since Holland".
He said his cousin had left the city of Jiangle in southern China in February and had travelled through Beijing, Moscow, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.
Mr Chen, who is living in west London while he seeks political asylum, comes from the same city as his cousin. The parents heard the news of the death when relatives in Britain telephoned to say 58 people had died in a truck.
He said his cousin's parents had known about their son's plans but that everybody thought he would be flying to Britain.
The mother told Mr Chen that the agent in Jiangle who had organised the trip had since disappeared. He said his cousin's family had had to borrow from relatives and moneylenders to raise the £14,000 fee. It would take them five years to pay off the debt, he said.
He said his cousin had been persecuted in China because he was a Roman Catholic.