By Esther Addley in London, Simon Murphy in Zeebrugge & Rory Carroll in Dublin @ The Guardian.com, Oct. 24

The 39 people who were found dead in a refrigerated lorry trailer in Essex on Wednesday were already trapped when they arrived at the Belgian coast en route to England, local officials have said, as police confirmed that the victims were all Chinese nationals.

The Belgian officials said the eight women and 31 men would have been locked in the trailer at temperatures as low as -25C for at least 10 hours after the trailer arrived at the port of Zeebrugge on Tuesday afternoon.

As the investigation gathered pace, police secured an additional 24 hours to question a lorry driver arrested at the scene of the discovery, and inquiries broadened to involve the authorities in Ireland, Belgium and China.

The Irish company that owns the trailer said it was cooperating with police and insisted it had no connection to the driver, 25-year-old Mo Robinson.

One report claimed detectives were focusing on three suspected gang members based in Northern Ireland near the border. The Daily Telegraph cited security sources saying they were concentrating on a criminal gang based in south Armagh with links to dissident paramilitaries.

The chief executive of Zeebrugge port, Joachim Coens, said the trailer would not have been interfered with after it arrived there at 2.49pm. “A refrigerated container in the port zone is completely sealed,” he told Belgian media. “During the check, the seal is examined, as is the licence plate. The driver is checked by cameras." [....]