The deadly migrant routes from Vietnam to Europe – and why people are willing to take the risk
It’s a bizarre sight. After hours of winding through paddy fields full of farmers toiling in the searing heat, I’ve arrived at what looks like a Disneyland tribute to Rome.
It’s a shock of golden gates and palatial mansions, framed by statement statues and Renaissance pillars. This is Billionaire Village – a place once poor, now crowded with lavish buildings built with money sent back by those who have left to work overseas.
‘Billionaire Village’ in north central Vietnam
Thousands of Vietnamese nationals every year head to Europe in search of this kind of wealth, pursuing legal and illegal routes. More than a thousand crossed the Channel on boats in the first quarter of this year alone, according to government data. That’s almost as many as made the crossing in 2023, and up from 125 people on the same period last year.
Family is at the heart of Vietnamese culture and people will do all they can to support their loved ones. Many pay for legal work visas to countries like Hungary, where there are labour shortages in sectors like manufacturing. But the path from Vietnam to Europe can be costly, murky and even deadly. Unscrupulous agents often charge exorbitant rates, even for official visas, which can lead to heavily indebted migrants being left at the mercy of an international web of people smugglers.
An advert for European travel in Son Thanh
‘They wanted to help make his dream come true’
In 2019, the perilous conditions in which some migrants have travelled were exposed, when 39 Vietnamese people died after suffocating in a container en route from Belgium to Essex. At least three of those who died came from Do Thanh, the rice farming community in north central Vietnam, where I am now. Behind the doors of these grand houses, families still struggle with their grief.
Inside the home of Nguyen Thi Nhung, 60, incense burns in front of a makeshift shrine to mark the recent death of her husband. Five years ago, her son, 32-year-old Le Van Ha, a father of two, was among the victims of the Essex lorry deaths. His wedding picture hangs proudly above the staircase. It was his dream to get to Britain, his mother says, tearfully. His family borrowed a huge sum of money to pay an “agent” to help him, and they’re still paying it off today, his cousin, Le Van Tan, says.
Le Van Ha, 32, died in the 2019 Essex lorry incident
“My family still owes a lot of money,” he says. “It costs 1 billion Vietnamese Dong for him to get into the UK [about £31,000]. When he passed away they had to start paying that back. They just wanted to help him to make his dream come true.”
Le Van Ha’s sister, Le Thi Hoai, is concerned about the number of people leaving this village and risking their lives to get to the UK. “In the countryside, there are hardly any jobs. That’s why they ignore the risks…. They know there are dangers… but they go to change their lives.”
Do Thanh, Nghe An province in north central Vietnam
‘London is ahead – we must keep pushing forward’
So, what’s driving the rise in Vietnamese nationals crossing illegally into the UK? My search for answers started online. I found some migrants openly posting their journeys on Tik Tok. A caption alongside one reads: “London is ahead, so we must keep pushing forward.”
I also found message boards online, where both legitimate agents and what appear to be people smugglers, advertise work opportunities abroad. An advert offering a passage to England via France and Hungary caught my eye. A contact number was listed, alongside a note that applications would be received in Vinh, the region’s capital city, which is now full of houses and shops built from the rewards of migrant work.
Posing as a British expat interested in getting a nanny to the UK, I called the number. A man answered and started detailing how the illegal journey, which he said would cost me about £20,000, would work. He was strikingly unguarded, saying he had got 53 people to the UK last year. The route he was proposing exploits a legal work visa scheme in Hungary but he says nobody would actually work – it’s just a ruse to get into Europe and eventually the UK.
The agent said he got 53 people into the UK last year
I had an address in Vinh, so I headed there and made enquiries. Five minutes after our first phone call, he arrived at the small stall where I was sitting. He showed me pictures on his phone of 20 Vietnamese people camped in a forest, who he claimed to have helped reach Britain.
The journey from Vietnam to England, he said, would take about seven to ten days. After spending a few days in Hungary, his customers are picked up and taken to France on a bus or train. From there, a “canoe” transports them to the UK. Beyond that, he wouldn’t tell me which other countries they cross through or how they travel. When I asked him how big the canoe is and expressed fears about peoples’ safety, he was dismissive.
“It used to be dangerous, but now it’s safe,” he claimed. “We use canoes to cross the Channel, which isn’t far.” On his last trip he said “there were 15 people and no one died.”
He showed pictures of the type of boat he said was used to get from France to the UK
He then showed examples of Hungarian work visas he claimed to have secured for customers, in the passports of Vietnamese nationals. These were followed by pictures of the type of boat we would take from France to the UK. It looked like a stock online image of a speed boat moored by a Greek island, rather than the flimsy rubber dinghies used in most illegal Channel crossings.
In his mind, it was much safer going by boat than in a container. I asked what would happen if the police intervened. “The lawyers will help if they’re arrested,” he insisted.
Did he ever worry that the people he was taking huge sums of money from might die, I asked. “I just help them get where they want,” he said. “I don’t force them to go there.”
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‘There’s a lot of sexual abuse’
For those migrants who reach the UK, life can be tough. Many end up working in restaurants, nail salons and cannabis farms, with little control over their lives.
“The UK is where the heaviest of the exploitation takes place,” said Mimi Vu, an anti-trafficking expert. Explaining that as Britain is the final destination, it is where the human trafficking of migrants occurs. “You have physical beatings and slavery. They’re locked up and not allowed to go anywhere. For women and girls, there’s a lot of sexual abuse.”
Vietnamese migrants arrive in Calais
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Framing those who arrive on British shores simply as “illegal migrants”, Mimi said, “misses the context of why the Vietnamese end up in the UK in the first place.” The latest surge in arrivals to these shores, she explains, is likely the product of people who started their journeys six months ago from Vietnam. While Hungary’s work visas are the target for corrupt agents, previously it was study programmes in Malta. Soon, it may be somewhere else.
Mimi also points out that some migrants do start out working legally, plugging labour shortages in countries, only to find themselves not making as much money as they hoped and ending up pushed into taking more dangerous forbidden routes to pay off the money they owe.
I think of how families like Le Van Ha’s have ended up in crippling debt after hoping his journey would change their lives for the better. How instead that journey can rob people of their lives and basic freedoms.
Five years on, the tragedy in Essex has not deterred people coming from Vietnam. Despite the dangers, it’s the reward not the risk that drives them forward.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison.
The former president, 70, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy, but was cleared of all other charges in the trial over the alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign by the government of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
The court in Paris found him guilty of criminal conspiracy, but not guilty of passive corruption, illegal campaign financing, and concealing the embezzlement of public funds.
In a surprise move, the judge said he would be jailed regardless of whether he appeals the verdict, which usually suspends sentencing. He was not sent straight to jail, however, with the start date of his sentence yet to be decided.
Sarkozy denied the charges during the three-month court case, which he claimed was politically motivated.
He was accompanied to Thursday’s hearing by his wife, singer and model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and his three sons.
Overall, the verdict suggested the former president and his co-defendants had conspired to seek Libyan campaign funding – but not that he was directly involved or that money was actually used.
The judge said Sarkozy had allowed his associates to reach out to Libyan authorities “to obtain or try to obtain financial support in Libya for the purpose of securing campaign financing”.
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Sarkozy says he will appeal guilty verdict
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Earlier this year, Sarkozy was stripped of his Legion of Honour medal, France‘s highest accolade.
In 2021, he was found guilty of trying to bribe a magistrate for information about a legal case in which he was implicated in 2014. Two years later, he was sentenced to a year on electronic tag, of which six months were suspended. After three months, it was ruled he could remove the monitoring device due to his age.
In another case last year, he was convicted of illegal campaign financing during his unsuccessful 2012 re-election bid, having spent almost twice the allowed amount. He was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months suspended.
He has appealed the sentence and is awaiting the outcome from France’s highest court – the Court of Cassation.
Despite his criminal record, Sarkozy has remained an influential figure within the French Right.
Nicolas Sarkozy (right) and Muammar Gaddafi (second right) in 2007. Pic: Reuters
Light shed on French-Libyan relations during Gaddafi’s rule
During the Gaddafi finance trial, he described the case against him as a “plot” staged by the “Gaddafi clan” and other “liars and crooks”.
He claimed it was revenge for his decision to call for Gaddafi to be removed from office.
The allegations stretch back to 2011 when a Libyan news agency reported that Gaddafi had said Libya had secretly sent millions of euros to Sarkozy’s election campaign.
A year later, French investigative outlet Mediapart published what it claimed to be a piece of Libyan intelligence referencing a £43.7m funding agreement, which Sarkozy rubbished and saw him sue for defamation.
The court ruled on Thursday that it “now appears most likely that this document was a forgery”.
In the current case, Sarkozy had 11 co-defendants, including three former ministers.
Two of them, Claude Gueant and Brice Hortefeux, both among his closest confidantes during his presidency, were also found guilty of criminal association but not guilty on other charges.
The trial shed light on France’s relationship with Libya during the 2000s, when Gaddafi, who was toppled and killed in 2011, was trying to restore diplomatic ties with Western countries.
It also saw investigators scrutinise several trips to Libya made by people in Sarkozy’s inner circle while he was still interior minister between 2005 and 2007 – including his chief-of-staff.
In a key development in 2016, Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine told Mediapart he had delivered suitcases full of cash from Tripoli to the French interior ministry while Sarkozy was in charge – but later retracted the claims.
Co-defendant Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine. Pic: Reuters
Mr Takieddine, who was one of the co-defendants, died aged 75 on Tuesday in Beirut, according to his lawyer Elise Arfi said. He fled to Lebanon in 2020 and did not attend the trial.
His change-of-heart is now subject to a separate investigation into alleged witness interference – but it has not yet gone to trial.
Inside a dimly-lit storeroom in Tine’s central market, near the border of North Darfur and Chad, we are shown a haunting video.
Young men crouched on the ground and covered in sand stare up at a phone camera helplessly.
A loud male voice interrogates them and demands to know what they are smuggling into Al Fashir, the regional capital besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
One responds with “rice” and another says “pasta”.
“I will swat all of you like flies,” the man says from behind the camera, before pointing his gun at each of their heads and feigning lethal headshots in a mock execution.
We are shown the clip by Ahmed* and Hassan*, who are using pseudonyms for their protection.
The young men in the video are just one of the many teams they coordinate to smuggle food and lifesaving supplies into Sudan‘s Al Fashir, where around 900,000 people are being forced into famine by an RSF blockade while being bombarded by deadly drone strikes and shelling.
The dangers of this work are extreme as smuggling routes rapidly open and close, and battles for control rage inside the city.
Some of the teams they send make it to Al Fashir, but many do not. The three men in the video are still missing and are feared dead.
“The situation in Al Fashir is catastrophic – you cannot afford to watch and do nothing,” says Ahmed in front of a stack of flour sacks piled up to the ceiling.
“We have no option but to offer what we can for people to eat and survive the shelling.”
Read more: Inside the epicentre of Sudan’s war
The young smugglers are trying to distribute vital supplies
As we drive to the storeroom, their phones constantly ping with messages, voice notes and phone calls.
As Ahmed fires back a voice note requesting costings on bulk food items, Hassan brings his phone to his ear and listens.
He sighs with frustration and says: “We just received a message from HQ that one of our guys smuggling in insulin hasn’t arrived and was likely killed.
“He has been missing for three days. We have to count him among the dead.”
Hassan tells us they are being targeted by the RSF, adamant to uphold their siege.
“It happens a lot. Three days ago, we had a group of 12 people break up into three teams of four. Two of the teams arrived, but one group never surfaced.”
A map showing the berms – raised banks – surrounding Al Fashir. Pic: Yale School of Public Health
Ahmed* and Hassan* spoke to us on the condition of anonymity
The number of dead is mounting and uncountable. They tell us they have lost 30 volunteers in the first week of September alone.
Their network of fearless first responders was born out of the resistance committees created to organise and assist targeted protesters during Sudan’s 2019 revolution.
Now, they carry the burden of feeding and treating war-impacted civilians across the country through the Nobel Peace Prize nominated Emergency Response Rooms.
The battle for Al Fashir – and Sudan
Al Fashir is being suffocated to death by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as they push to claim full control of the Darfur region as a base for their parallel government, after the military recaptured the capital Khartoum and other key sites in central Sudan.
Close to a million people are facing famine in Al Fashir and surrounding camps as the RSF enforces a full blockade, launching armed attacks on volunteers and aid workers risking their lives to bring in food.
Inside the city, thousands are bombarded by almost daily shelling from surrounding RSF troops.
The RSF have physically reinforced their siege with a berm – a raised earth mound. First spotted by Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, the berm is visible from space.
The Sudan war started in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and the RSF broke out in Khartoum.
The US special envoy to Sudan estimates that 150,000 have been killed, but the exact figure is unknown. Close to 12 million people have been displaced.
Several mediation attempts have failed to secure a humanitarian access mechanism or any lulls in fighting.
The RSF are not just targeting these civilian volunteers but also aid convoys attempting to deliver food.
On 3 June, a World Food Programme (WFP)-UNICEF aid convoy approaching Al Fashir was attacked, with five convoy personnel being killed and several food trucks destroyed.
Last month, another WFP convoy approaching an RSF-held town, Mellit, was attacked, and three trucks were set on fire.
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‘Where is the humanity?’
Near a makeshift displacement shelter in Tine, 24 WFP trucks full of food are parked at a transshipment point under the sun.
The trucks will set off to towns in North Darfur that are controlled by the RSF: Mellit, Kutum and Korma.
Korma is only 43 miles from Al Fashir, but aid trucks will not brave facing the RSF by approaching the besieged capital.
WFP Sudan’s country director Laurent Bukera says: “For months, the UN has been trying to secure guarantees for a humanitarian pause allowing safe delivery to the city.
“We received clearances from the government of Sudan’s humanitarian aid commission to deliver aid into Al Fashir and are renewing these, but the RSF has yet to communicate support for a humanitarian pause.”
The WFP has struggled to distribute food in Sudan
Volunteers call for aid airdrops
Hassan, Ahmed and other volunteers we met are calling for food air drops, similar to those in Gaza and South Sudan.
“We need safe humanitarian passage for the delivery of aid – by road or by air drop,” says Hassan. “That is the responsibility of the international community as a neutral entity that can navigate the belligerents.”
But navigating these belligerents has proven difficult for mediators and the United Nations.
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Since the start of the war in April 2023, there has not been a single humanitarian pause or ceasefire that would allow for the guaranteed safe passage of aid.
“We are exploring every option to get aid into Al Fashir,” says Mr Bukera. “Airdrops are up to 10 times more expensive and extremely risky due to high risk of drone strikes, anti-aircraft weapons and shelling in and around Al Fashir.
“Also with the absence of humanitarian pause, to date, no aircraft and pilot have been willing to take the risk.”
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Until a safe corridor for aid is established, Al Fashir’s young volunteers will continue to face death to get food to their besieged and bombarded relatives in friends inside the city.
“If we don’t do it – it’ll be a slow genocide. So, better to die trying,” says Hassan.
“We have no other option but to take these risks.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s moment in the United Nations General Assembly chamber came a day after he told Sky News that Donald Trump’s language represented a “big shift” in America’s stance on Ukraine.
The dust is settling on US President Trump’s social media post on Tuesday.
While it unquestionably represents a shift in position – now claiming Ukraine can take back all of the land lost – big questions remain about Mr Trump‘s personal and material commitment to a Ukrainian victory.
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Zelenskyy tells Sky News Trump has made ‘big shift’
President Zelenskyy addresses the United Nations General Assembly. Pic: AP
Mr Zelenskyy is taking the win that the language represents, but he, more than anyone, knows that Mr Trump can turn on a dime.
And so his speech was a warning, a message and a continued plea for help.
The Ukrainian leader cited history in warning that Russia won’t stop unless it is defeated.
Mr Zelenskyy said: “We have already lost Georgia in Europe. Human rights and the European nature of the state system are only shrinking there.
“Georgia is dependent on Russia and for many, many years, Belarus has also been moving towards dependence on Russia.”
“Putin will keep driving the war forward, wider and deeper… Ukraine is only the first. Russian drones are already flying across Europe.”
“Europe cannot afford to lose Moldova too,” he said.
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Drawing on the experience of his country, he warned of what he said was a uniquely dangerous proliferation of weapons.
“We are living through the most destructive arms race in human history,” he said, warning specifically of the dangers of drones which will soon be controlled by artificial intelligence (AI).
But he also warned of the proliferation of the use of violence, whether it be from nation states or from political activists.
He cited the assassination attempts on Mr Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
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He included these moments not just because he believes they represent a dangerous and tragic shift but because he knows he needs to keep President Trump and his base of support on side. Showing empathy with them is important.
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He spoke in perfect English. Not long ago, he struggled with the language. He knows that now, more than ever, he needs to communicate in the language of those who hold the key to his country’s future.
“Of course, we are doing everything to make sure Europe truly helps, and we count on the United States,” he said.
He closed with a plea to the nations of the world, gathered in the chamber.
“Don’t stay silent while Russia keeps dragging this war on… Please join us in defending life, international law and order,” he said.
“People are waiting for action.”
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