Around 40 migrants found ‘crammed’ in truck intercepted near Stanstead border

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) intercepted three suspected smugglers and 44 migrants overnight from Saturday to Sunday as they attempted to illegally cross the Canada–U.S. border near Haskell Road, close to Stanstead in Estrie.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) says it has never seen a case of this magnitude in the area.

According to Miguel Bégin, director of the CBSA’s Eastern Border District, the migrants—including children—were “packed into a cube truck with no ventilation,” posing serious health risks.

Ogulcan Mersin, 25, Dogan Alakus and Firat Yuksek, both 31, were charged with inciting, aiding or abetting someone to commit an offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as well as assisting people to enter Canada outside a designated customs office.

RCMP spokesperson Charles Poirier said police stopped a van around 2:20 a.m. Sunday morning after receiving information about a group of migrants planning to cross the border from the United States.

He said the migrants included a pregnant woman and children as young as four. 

They were dehydrated, “visibly distraught” and cramped when police found them, he added.

“They were short of air, no one had water, and with the children and the limited space, they couldn’t sit on the floor, they had to stand,” he explained in a telephone interview Monday. “They were left in just horrible conditions, really.”

The vast majority of the truck’s passengers were Haitian nationals, he said, adding that they told agents they had crossed the border on foot. The group walked for two hours before the truck picked them up.

Despite the poor conditions and dehydration, Poirier confirmed that none of the migrants appeared to be in immediate danger.

The CBSA said most of the foreign nationals have been transferred to the refugee processing centre in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, where they are subject to immigration screening.

The agency did not specify the whereabouts of the other foreign nationals, citing confidentiality reasons.

The three suspects will remain in custody until their next court appearance on Wednesday.

The investigation is ongoing and further charges may be filed, the agency added.

Poirier said this was the first time he had heard of such a large number of migrants being intercepted simultaneously in Quebec. He expressed concern about the possibility of tragedy if large groups become more frequent.

“Imagine everything that could have gone wrong, if the truck had been involved in a collision, if the migrants had been trapped without air in the truck. Fortunately, none of that happened, but it could have happened,” he said. “That’s why we are very lucky and very happy that the information we obtained was reliable and that we managed to rescue them.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews