Vietnam Jails Four Over Migrant Deaths in British Truck

Tran Thi Hien, mother of Anna Bui Thi Nhung, one of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in a truck near London last year, cries while following an ambulance carrying her daughter's coffin during the funeral ceremony at her village in Nghe An province, Vietnam, on Nov. 30, 2019. Kham/Reuters

HANOI—A court in Vietnam on Monday sentenced four Vietnamese people to between 2-1/2 and 7-1/2 years in prison for their role in the deaths of 39 migrants whose bodies were discovered in the back of a truck near London in October last year.

The deaths shocked Britain and Vietnam and shone a spotlight on the illicit global trade that sends the poor of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East on perilous journeys to the West.