Burmese illegal migrant workers rescued from a cramped container sit in a prison cell at a police station
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Thai police find 54 dead Burmese workers in lorry
Fifty-four illegal Burmese migrants who were being smuggled by traffickers in southern Thailand suffocated in the sweltering confines of a tiny seafood container lorry today after the air-conditioning system failed
Some of the 67 survivors told how they were just 30 minutes into their journey to the resort island of Phuket, where they hoped to find work, when conditions became unbearably stifling
But the driver warned those trying to alert him by banging on the container's walls and calling him on his mobile phone to be quiet for fear of tipping off the police as they passed through check-points along the route
When the driver finally stopped on a quiet road running along the Andaman Sea 90 minutes later, many of the migrants, mostly women, had already collapsed. After discovering the horrific scene, he ran away
clipped from: www.guardian.co.uk