Reports Wednesday that British police found 39 people dead in a truck container at an industrial park in the United Kingdom elicited an outpouring of condolences alongside condemnation of immigration policies across Europe.

Amnesty International of Ireland, in a tweet, offered its sympathy to families and friends of the deceased and suggested the “heartbreaking and horrifying” incident is an indictment of inhumane immigration policies.

“People who are forced to take dangerous journeys to reach Europe, in this case the U.K., often do so,” the group wrote, “because current immigration policies deny them safe and legal options.”

Stephen W. Thrasher, an American writer and faculty member at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, tweeted that “this is the reality borders create.”

Authorities were called to the Waterglade Industrial Park on Eastern Avenue in Grays early Wednesday, according to a statement from Essex deputy chief constable Pippa Mills.

“Emergency services attended but sadly all 39 people inside the container had died,” Mills said. “Early indications suggest that one of these people was a teenager, the rest are believed to be adults.”

“A murder investigation was launched,” she added. The truck driver, “a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland, was arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody.”