Police discovered on Thursday morning 23 transmigrants hidden in a closed refrigerator truck at Zeebrugge port.
Of the 23 transmigrants, 20 are men and three are women. They are reportedly from Eritrea and Sudan and were heading in the direction of the U.K., Le Soir explains.
The temperature of the truck was no more than 2 degrees Celcius. Although the transmigrants were cold when they came out of the truck, they were all in stable condition.
After it came to light that the 39 transmigrants who died in a refrigerated truck and were discovered in Essex in the U.K. in mid-October passed through Zeebrugge, the port authorities have since introduced stricter checks.
This is particularly true of refrigerated trucks, whose thick walls often mean that the contents are difficult to determine, Nieuwsblad explains.
Evie McCullough
The Brussels Times