Police find 17 refugees 'suffocating' in refrigerated van after high-speed chase

More than a dozen refugees have been found packed inside a refrigerated minivan after a high-speed police chase at the French border.

A video filmed from an Italian police car showed the white vehicle speeding towards a checkpoint near the town of Ventimiglia and being stopped at a gate before entering France.

Plain clothes officers carrying guns surrounded the van before arresting the driver, a 39-year-old Italian man.

When police opened the back doors, they found 17 migrants packed inside, with one telling officers he feared he was going to suffocate to death.

Italy’s border police force (Polizia di Frontiera) said he paid €50 (£45) to a smuggler of Arab origin, who had contacted him with instructions on the clandestine passage to France.

The van’s driver was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting illegal immigration, aggravated for making profit, and the inhumane and degrading treatment of people.

The operation was announced on Thursday, after taking place earlier this week.

The border between Italy's Ventimiglia and Menton in southern France has been dubbed “Mini Calais” as migrants try to cross by foot or by hiding in vehicles.

Each night people set out from refugee camps on the Italian side in the hope that they can negotiate three miles of mountain passes and tunnels and enter France unnoticed.

The vast majority travel to the border from Sicily and southern Italy, where almost 145,000 asylum seekers have arrived so far this year after being rescued from smugglers’ boats in the Mediterranean.

Under EU law, they must register and apply for asylum in the country where they first enter the union, but the vast majority aim to travel onwards from Italy.