DOZENS of would-be migrants from various parts of Africa have hijacked a delivery lorry in the Valencia area which was heading for the UK in an attempt to get into the latter country.
The driver, Galicia-based Carlos Cudeiro, 37, said he was transporting pre-cooked sliced bread from a factory to Britain via France, but only got as far as Quart de Poblet (Valencia) before he was held up by '20 or 30 men' who were 'armed with crowbars, knives and picks'.
Cudeiro said he saw them beating up the Lithuanian lorry driver who was just in front of him in a traffic queue on the A-7 motorway, breaking the chains around the back door and trying to enter the container.
Seeing the Lithuanian lorry was full of pallets and there was no room for them, the gang approached Carlos' lorry, which was carrying a cargo from the bread factory in Feignies, northern France to take to Rugby, Warwickshire via the Eurotunnel in Calais.
"They threatened me through the window. They said if I didn't keep quiet, they'd beat me up," he reveals.
The men reportedly forced their way into the cabin and the container, throwing full boxes of bread out onto the road - rendering it unsaleable - in order to get inside.
Cudeiro had to ring the factory and explain what had happened, and they told him to turn back without completing his journey, for his own safety.
An hour into his return journey, hearing banging noises in the hold, Cudeiro realised he was 'not travelling alone' and rang the transport company in Valencia to warn them.
They called the National Police and the Gendarmerie in France, who agreed he should stop at the next layby on the A26, near Arrás.
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