The Chinese and British police have jointly confirmed that all the 20 victims of the Morecambe Bay drowning tragedy were Chinese citizens, the Ministry of Public Security announced Thursday.

More than 30 Asian cockle pickers were trapped by rising tides in the treacherous shallows of the Morecambe Bay in northwest England on the evening of Feb. 5, and 20 of them were found dead.

At the invitation of British police, China sent a five-member police team, which arrived in Britain on March 4, to help confirm the identity of the drowned.

During their stay at Britain, the team presented flowers to the victims' bodies, investigated the tragedy site and collected information from the rescue station of the bay and local police and immigration departments.

The team returned home on March 19 after completing its mission.

British police had acknowledged that only one of the survivors had a legal identity document. All the others were suspected of being illegal immigrants, as they had neither legal documents nor did they speak English.

Chen Weiming, director of the frontier bureau with the ministry, reiterated at a regular press conference Wednesday that illegal immigration and human trafficking is an international issue that has plagued many countries, and the Chinese government and police have all along adhered to the stance of firmly cracking down on it.

Nevertheless, Chen also said that the problem could not be wholly curbed because of its huge profits and the uneven economic development situations in different countries.

The latest statistics show that Chinese police captured a total of 5,286 stowaways, 444 human traffickers and repatriated 16,282 foreigners illegally entering, staying or working in China in a five-month campaign from October 2003 to March this year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2004)