Tanzanian police Wednesday were
questioning 74 migrants who survived suffocation in a truck where 42 fellow
travellers perished, Deputy Interior Minister Pereira Silima said.
"Police and immigration officials
are questioning the survivors to establish their identity including names and
nationality," Silima told AFP.
It was initially reported the migrants
were from Malawi, but officials said that they were suspected of coming from
the Horn of Africa region to the north, and were on their way southwards to
Malawi.
"Preliminary reports have it that
the immigrants were destined to Malawi," Silima said.
Police said the truck driver fled the
vehicle after finding the dead bodies.
The bodies were discovered on Tuesday
in the truck in Dodoma province, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of
Tanzania's economic capital Dar es Salaam.
In December, 20 Somali migrants were
found dead in Tanzania.
Foreign ministry spokesman
Isaac Nantanga said at the time that an increasing number of Ethiopians and
Somalis were crossing the country to make their way to South Africa, the
continent's richest country.
No comments:
Post a Comment