Police are now searching a third property in County Armagh in connection with the discovery of 39 bodies in a truck container in Essex, England.
Investigators believe all 39 are Chinese nationals.
Police have also confirmed that there were 31 men and eight women among the adult and that they were all adults.
The driver of the truck, a 25-year-old man from Portadown in County Armagh, is still being questioned after being arrested on suspicion of murder.
Police in Essex were today given another 24 hours to question the man.
Meanwhile, police in Northern Ireland began searching two addresses in County Armagh yesterday evening and have entered a third today.
Refrigerated truck
The bodies were found in a refrigerated lorry trailer at an industrial park in Essex in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Police were alerted shortly after 1:40am.
Investigators said the trailer arrived in the UK by ferry from the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium just over an hour earlier.
They said the tractor section arrived in Britain from Northern Ireland – before picking up the trailer at the docks in the Thurrock area and transporting it to Essex.
Emergency services were alerted to the discovery of the bodies just over half-an-hour after the lorry left the docks.
It is unclear where the lorry was before it arrived at the Belgian port.
The container lorry where 39 people were found dead inside at Waterglade Industrial Park in Essex, 24-10-2019. Image: Aaron Chown/PA Wire/PA ImagesEssex Police investigation
Essex Police began the process of identifying all 39 people this morning.
In a statement they said: “This will be a lengthy and complex investigation and we continue to work with local partners and international authorities to gather vital intelligence and identify those who have sadly died.”
The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said the truck was registered in the city of Varna and under the name of a company owned by an Irish woman.
It said it was “highly unlikely” the victims were Bulgarians.
Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said Bulgaria has "no connection" to the lorry beyond its registration.
He said it had not entered the country since 2017.
A police forensic officer at the scene after 39 bodies were found in a shipping container at Waterglade Industrial Park in Essex, 23-10-2019. Image: Ray Tang/Xinhua News Agency/PA ImagesMigration
Amnesty International spokesperson Steve Valdez-Symonds said a Europe-wide crackdown is forcing asylum seekers to make increasingly dangerous journeys.
“If you close down routes and make relatively safe options impossible or much harder you only drive people who don’t have real choices but to try to make a journey onto much more dangerous routes and of course more tragedies result,” he said.
Irish Refugee Council spokesperson Caroline Reid said the EU needs to overhaul its response to immigration.
“It is a massive tragedy,” she said. “39 people are dead and if it is connected to forced migration, it brings into sharp focus the urgent need for safe and legal pathways to protection and migration.
“Since 2014, nearly 20,000 people have lost their lives in the Mediterranean alone.
“It is very likely that countless others have died because at the moment Europe is more interested in stemming migration flows that looking at more proactive solutions.”
She called on the EU to consider humanitarian visas and humanitarian admissions programmes for people fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries.
Indentification
Essex Police have set up a casualty bureau for people to call if they are concerned about relatives following the incident at Waterglade Industrial Park, Eastern Avenue, Grays, this morning, Wednesday 23 October.
Anyone who has any information about this incident can submit information to the UK Police Major Incident Public Reporting site
With additional reporting from IRN ...
