Eight would-be refugees found dead in Ireland

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Hearing faint pounding and moaning, an Irish trucker discovered the bodies of eight would-be refugees and five people clinging to life in his cargo Saturday. Police said they would mount a Europe-wide hunt for the human traffickers believed responsible.

It was the first mass fatality involving asylum-seekers in Ireland, which in recent years has been targeted by rings that smuggle people from poorer countries. Police said they weren't sure of the victims' nationalities but were interviewing a 17-year-old survivor who spoke Turkish. Among the dead were two small children.

The deaths highlighted the great risks that many people run in their efforts to evade police to enter western European countries illegally. Like others, Ireland has tightened its security at ports of entry and toughened deportation laws to try to stem the human tide.

"Those involved in the cruel trade of trafficking in human beings have perpetrated yet another atrocity on the victims of their greed," said Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

The refugees heading to Ireland were hidden inside a container carrying office furniture that made a journey across Europe. The container was loaded in Italy, shipped by rail to Belgium, and left Tuesday from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge bound for the southeast Irish port of Waterford. The boat had also recently stopped in Cologne, Germany.

"It's very difficult to say how long they may have been in that container," said Superintendent John Farrelly, a police spokesman.

The trucker loaded the container onto his vehicle Saturday morning at Waterford port, Farrelly said, then stopped at a business center about 40 miles away and heard faint sounds of pounding and moaning. Inside he found six men and two children dead, and five people still alive but passing out apparently from lack of oxygen.

The survivors -- one a child, another described as seriously ill -- were taken to nearby Wexford General Hospital.

Farrelly ruled out the possibility that the refugees had got into the container themselves.