Six women trapped inside a refrigerated food lorry have been rescued after one of them made a distress call to a BBC reporter.
The women - four of whom were Vietnamese and two from Iraq - hid for hours in an HGV loaded with boxes of bananas in northern France, in a bid to reach the UK or Ireland.
When they realised the truck was going the opposite way, they started to panic in the cold and cramped, dark space.
One of them managed to reach a BBC reporter in London, who helped the women alert French police on Wednesday.
“It’s so cold, it [the cooler] keeps blowing,” the woman told the reporter Khue B Luu by text, saying the lorry doors had been sealed, so the women were trapped.
In one video, a woman could be heard saying in English: “I can’t breathe.” Footage showed the women sitting in a tight space on the floor, surrounded by boxes of fruit, and panicking.
The texter was able to share her live location, allowing the reporter to determine that the lorry was on the E15 highway near Dracé, north of Lyon, and alert the authorities.
French prosecutor Laetitia Francart said the lorry driver, who was heading for Italy, was unaware.
The truck was 6C inside, she said, adding that the women were all wearing thick coats and had no health problems.
French managed to intercept the truck on a motorway, while the driver also called police after hearing noise coming from his trailer.
The six women were detained for being in France illegally before being released.
Four were given 30 days to leave the country. The other two were permitted to stay so they could request asylum.
Thousands of migrants seeking a better life in the UK try to cross from northern France to Britain every year, either by hiding in lorries or on small boats across the Channel.
In 2019, 39 migrants from Vietnam who paid large sums of money to human smugglers suffocated in a lorry trailer on their way to England.
