54 migrants suffocate in back of truck

54 ILLEGAL migrant workers from Burma suffocated in the back of an unventilated 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.