54 migrants suffocate in back of truck
The rest of the passengers being smuggled to Thailand pounded on the container and screamed in vain for the driver’s help.
More than 100 migrants, mostly women, were about two hours into their trip to the resort island of Phuket late on Wednesday when they started collapsing, police and survivors said. At that point, in Ranong province near Burma, their ruckus caused the driver to stop.
When he unlocked the container and discovered the dead workers, survivors said he ran off.
The victims, along with 67 survivors, had been forced to stand in the seven ft-by-20-ft locked and sweltering container area of the truck, normally used to carry seafood, police said.
“I thought everyone was going to die,” said Saw Win, a 30-year-old survivor.
He said that about 30 minutes into the trip the occupants pounded on the truck, screamed for air and used a mobile phone to call the driver, who briefly turned on air conditioning.
The air conditioning later shut down, and they called the driver again but his phone was off.
