See also: Timeline of the European migrant crisis and List of migrant vessel incidents on the Mediterranean Sea.
This article is a list of illegal migrant vehicle incidents in Europe, involving injury and/or loss of life. Illegal migrants to Europe who have boarded transport vehicles have occasionally been injured or killed in crashes or suffocation incidents. – either unintentionally or deliberately – as a result of migrant activity.
| Date | Location | Passengers | Injuries | Deaths | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 June 2000 | Dover, Kent, United Kingdom | 60 | 2 | 58 | 58 Chinese illegal migrants were found dead in the back of a Dutch-registered lorry.[1] [2] See main article: Dover lorry deaths. | |
| 8 December 2001 | Drinagh, Wexford, Ireland | 13 | 5 | 8 | The victims were found in a business park in an intermodal container carrying furniture from Italy. They entered the container the night of December 3–4 at a truck stop in Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium. The plan was for a three-hour voyage from Zeebrugge to Dover rather than a 102-hour voyage in stormy weather to Belview Harbour at Waterford. The dead were all Turks, including four children; the survivors were Turkish, Algerian, and Kosovo Albanian. In 2003 a Belgian court sentenced a London-based Turk and six Belgium-based Kosovars and Moroccans to between two and ten years' imprisonment, the longest in absentia.[3] | |
| 17 August 2003 | Poole, Dorset, UK | 3 | 0 | 1 | Iraqi Kurdish illegal migrant found dead and two arrested when police stopped a lorry. The dead man had been crushed by the movement of metal containers.[4] | |
| 5 October 2005 | Haddon, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK | 6 | 0 | 1 | Vietnamese illegal migrant jumped or fell from lorry and died. Police arrested five others, all believed to be Vietnamese.[5] | |
| 11 May 2006 | A3 near Clanfield, Hampshire, UK | 1 | 0 | 1 | Clung under lorry then fell and crushed by it. | |
| November 2006 | Harlow, Essex, UK | 1 | 0 | 1 | Tied himself under lorry; went under wheels after cutting free | |
| June 2007 | 4 | 3 | 1 | Hiding in speedboat in transit from Greece to Devon | ||
| September 2008 | Trent Vale, Staffordshire, UK | 1 | 0 | 1 | At third attempt to enter UK (established from fingerprints of the deceased), run over by lorry | |
| 2 December 2008 | M3, Winchester, Hampshire, UK | 2 | 0 | 1 | Hand seen protruding from lorry; upon the lorry being stopped, another man ran off | |
| 31 October 2009 | Eurotunnel Calais Terminal, France | 1 | 0 | 1 | Found dead in hidden compartment in lorry at Tunnel Terminal | |
| 11 April 2010 | Dunkirk ferry terminal, France | 1 | 0 | 1 | Fell from lorry boarding ferry | |
| 21 August 2015 | Amstetten, Lower Austria, Austria | 30 | 24 | 0 | 24 illegal migrants were injured (3 seriously) when the truck they were travelling in overturned. There were 30 migrants in the vehicle at the time.[6] | |
| 24 August 2015 | Nickelsdorf, Burgenland, Austria | 70–90 | 37 | 0 | 37 illegal migrants were injured in an accident. There were between 70 and 90 migrants in the two trucks involved.[7] | |
| 27 August 2015 | Ost Autobahn, Burgenland, Austria | 71 | 0 | 71 | Police discovered a truck along the A4 highway and found 71 deceased illegal migrants, including eight children. The truck, which had been parked on the hard shoulder in between the villages of Neusiedl and Parndorf, had been noticed by an employee of the ASFiNAG highway agency who observed liquid seeping out and informed police.[8] All migrants had suffocated within hours of boarding.[9] The driver claimed he did not know how to keep the doors partially shut, in a way that air could seep in. It is not clear when he became aware that the migrants were deceased.[10] In June 2018, the driver and three others were given 25-year sentences on homicide charges. They stated that they regretted what had happened and had not wanted the victims to die. See main article: Burgenland corpses discovery. | |
| 29 September 2015 | Calais, Hauts-de-France, France | 3 | 0 | 1 | An Iraqi illegal migrant was found crushed to death attempting to reach the UK illegally with the help of a Hungarian lorry driver near Calais when he inspected his cargo after "braking for reasons unknown". Two other relatives were found uninjured.[11] | |
| 23 March 2016 | Canterbury, Kent, UK | 26 | 2 | 0 | A woman collapsed and was taken to hospital while a boy suffered a leg injury after 26 illegal migrants were found in the back of a Romanian-registered refrigerated lorry. The lorry had been travelling to the UK from Spain.[12] | |
| 21 May 2016 | Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK | 28 | 1 | 0 | One man required urgent medical attention for inhalation of hazardous fumes and several others received medical attention after 28 illegal migrants were found in the back of a refrigerated lorry.[13] | |
| 18 October 2016 | Ashford, Kent, UK | 1 | 0 | 1 | An Eritrean man was found dead when a Hungarian-registered lorry stopped at a cafe. French authorities had checked the vehicle in Calais, removing 'around 10' migrants from Eritrea from the lorry.[14] | |
| 20 June 2017 | A16 autoroute near Guemps, Hauts-de-France, France | 0 | 0 | 1 | A Polish van driver was killed after his vehicle slammed into the back of an articulated lorry stopped by a group of Eritrean illegal migrants, who had blocked the A16 autoroute with tree limbs to break into vehicles. The vehicle exploded upon impact, killing the driver instantly. Nine migrants were arrested.[15] | |
| 25 July 2017 | A16 autoroute near Calais, Hauts-de-France, France | 0 | 1 | 0 | An HGV driver was left hospitalised with severe injuries after being beaten over the head with a brick by a group of illegal migrants who had stopped his truck; the migrants then hijacked the driver's vehicle and drove it towards the port, but were apprehended by police.[16] | |
| 29 December 2017 | Calais, Hauts-de-France, France | 1 | 0 | 1 | An Eritrean illegal migrant was crushed to death after the truck in which he was stowed away under a several-tonne pile of paper rolls crashed.[17] | |
| 17 November 2018 | Brussels-North railway station, Brussels, Belgium | 1 | 0 | 1 | A Chadian illegal migrant was crushed to death under coach when it started moving. The incident was not discovered until a routine check at Folkestone.[18] | |
| 22 May 2019 | Vojvodina, Serbia | 4 | 2 | 2 | Two illegal migrants died of heatstroke and suffocation and two others were in serious condition after hiding in a tanker truck near the border with Hungary. The driver discovered them when he opened the tank and saw them lying unconscious. At least two of the migrants were from Afghanistan.[19] | |
| 6 July 2019 | A29 Highway, Netherlands | 8 | 0 | 1 | An illegal migrant died after a fall or jump from a Romanian truck onto a highway in South Holland. All the migrants were presumably from Eritrea.[20] [21] | |
| 25 August 2019 | Slovenian–Croatian border | 12 | 0 | 1 | A woman died after a truck carrying 12 illegal migrants fell into a river after the driver fled a checkpoint near the border. The migrants were from Egypt and Pakistan.[22] | |
| 26 August 2019 | Alexandroupolis, Greece | 16 | 10 | 6 | Six illegal migrants were killed and another 10 injured when a smuggling jeep carrying them through northern Greece crashed into an irrigation ditch.[23] [24] | |
| 23 October 2019 | Grays, Essex, United Kingdom | 39 | 0 | 39 | Ambulance crews found 39 Vietnamese people dead inside a lorry trailer.[25] [26] See main article: Essex lorry deaths. | |
| 21 December 2021 | Beuvrequen, Pas-de-Calais, France | 0 | 0 | 1 | A Portuguese lorry driver suffered a fatal heart attack after a group of migrants stopped his vehicle, then punched him in the head when he left the cab and attempted to stop them from hijacking it.[27] [28] | |
| 17 February 2023 | Lokorsko, Sofia City Province, Bulgaria | 52 | 34 | 18 | At least 18 migrants were found dead due to suffocation near Sofia.[29] See main article: Sofia lorry deaths. | |
| 13 October 2023 | Ampfing, Bavaria, Germany | 23 | 16 | 7 | Seven people, including a child, were killed after a minivan driven by a suspected people-smuggler overturned on the A94 motorway while trying to evade police.[30] See main article: Mühldorf van crash. |