Afghan boy saves 15 trapped refugees via text message

A seven-year-old Afghan boy has saved the lives of 15 suffocating refugees trapped in a locked truck in Britain by sending a text message for help.

According to the reports, the boy, named Ahmed, used a cell phone given to him by British aid worker Inca Sorrell in France’s notorious Calais refugee camp to inform her that they were running out of oxygen inside the London-bound truck on Thursday morning.

Ahmed wrote in broken English, “I ned halp darivar no stap car no oksijan in the car no sagnal iam in the cantenar. Iam no jokan valla,” trying to say, “I need help. The driver won’t stop the car. No oxygen in the car. No signal. I’m in a container. I am not joking. I swear to God.”

Sorrell was participating in a conference in New York when she received the message.

“He told me that he was stuck in the back of the lorry and the driver wouldn’t stop, …and he had no way of getting out,” Sorrell said.

She, then, contacted her colleague in London, Tanya Freedman, who called the police. Security forces traced the phone, stopped the truck in Leicestershire in central England and took out all the people inside.

A police spokeswoman said 14 people were detained on suspicion of being illegal asylum seekers, adding that one man was arrested on suspicion of trafficking them into Britain, while “safeguarding measures were put in place for a child who was found in the truck.”

SS