Sikh men, women and children found in a shipping container in Britain were fleeing persecution in Afghanistan and had been trapped in the airless compartment without food or water for 18 hours, their translator said today.

Sikhs, discovered at Tilbury Docks in Essex, east of London, feared they would have all died had they remained inside for any longer without food or water, Kamaljit Singh Mataharu, a Punjabi-speaking local man called in by the police to translate, told reporters.

"It was pitch black, without any air. It soon became extremely uncomfortable," he told ITV television. "Horrendous, horrendous, horrendous. They suffered a lot," he said.

It has emerged that there were 15 families inside the container, all from Kabul, who had made it to Europe in a truck. A 40-year-old man died and the survivors included 13 men, eight women, aged between 18 and 72, and 13 children aged between one and 12.