Afghan 'smuggling bid' youths die

Afghan

More than 60 Afghans, mainly children and youths, have been found dead after suffocating inside a shipping container in southwestern Pakistan in an apparent human smuggling attempt.

More than 100 illegal immigrants were discovered inside the container, which had been locked from the outside, 20km from the border town of Quetta on Saturday.
Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's Pakistan correspondent, said the immigrants were first discovered after local residents at a lorry stop heard sounds coming from the container.
Most of the dead were reported to be teenage Afghans and at least five were small children.
The stench from the container suggested some of the immigrants may have been dead for days, Rasool Bakhsh, a police spokesman, said.
Survivors unconscious
They are thought to have been travelling from Afghanistan through Pakistan to Iran.
The group had been trapped inside for 24 hours many people had died from lack of oxygen, police said.
Wazir Khan Nasir, a senior police official in Quetta, said: "We have been able to talk to some of the people who were trapped in the container.
"When the condition of people inside the container deteriorated, the driver fled."
Dozens of the survivors were unconscious and taken to hospital for treatment.
Officials said the death toll is expected to rise.
PHOTO CAPTION
Pakistani volunteers shift a dead body at a hospital in Quetta.
Al-Jazeera

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