A man who is believed to be from Eastern Europe has been arrested in connection with the discovery of 14 migrants inside a refrigerated container in Rosslare port last week.
The man, who is in his 30s was arrested with the Irish Examiner reporting that Gardaí “received a tip-off a person of interest would be arriving into the port, and he was arrested there and then.”
The 14 migrants – of whom two are children – were found struggling to breathe in the container after making contact with UK emergency services after they reportedly began to run out of air.
Their number included 10 Kurdish people from Iran and Iraq, one person from Turkey, and three from Vietnam. This includes two children ages 4 and 6.
“At least” 8 of the 14 went missing from state care shortly after being brought to the City West asylum hub in Dublin.
Gardaí say they are not looking to locate the 8 as they “are not under criminal investigation”.
In 2022 there were 42 documented cases of human trafficking in Ireland according to Garda and Department of Justice statistics.
27 of the victims were female and 15 male, with 23 of the females having been trafficked into sexual exploitation compared to one male.
Read more on the story from a previous Gript article here.
In October last year two Latvian men were arrested and charged in connection to allegations of human trafficking in Donegal.
Georgijs Poniza (35) and Armen Pogosyan (28) with an address at Assaroe Falls, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, appeared before a sitting of Ballyshannon Court where they were charged with four counts of human trafficking and one count of money laundering.
Both were refused bail.
Read Gript’s report from October 2023 here.