27th November, 2019
After an agonising wait, the bodies of some of the 39 migrants found dead in a lorry in England last month were repatriated to Vietnam on Wednesday.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry said that 16 bodies were repatriated on Wednesday morning.
The rest will reportedly be brought back imminently, although the timeline remains unclear.
“My daughter’s body is on the way back home from (Hanoi) airport. Her body will arrive home at about 1 or 2 pm today (0600-0700 GMT). We will organise the funeral today and then a burial for her at 3 pm on Thursday,” Pham Van Thin, the father of 26-year-old victim Pham Thi Tra said.
Pham added that local authorities would not allow the family to go to the airport to escort the coffin back.
“They may be afraid our weeping will interrupt their work,’’ she said.
My’s text message to her mother saying “I’m sorry mum … I’m dying because I can’t breathe” first alerted the world of the possibility that Vietnamese nationals could be among the dead after British police initially said that all 39 victims were Chinese.
Shortly after the aircraft landed, representatives of victims’ families from Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Quang Binh provinces received the bodies of 16 victims and began the process of transporting them to the families, the statement said.
“Our district arranged and sent eight ambulances to (Hanoi) airport on Tuesday evening to carry eight bodies back home and hand them over to their families,” said Bui Huy Cuong, Deputy Chairman of Can Loc District in Ha Tinh province, where ten of the victims were from.