When they realized that the truck was going the opposite way, they started to panic in the cold and cramped, dark space. One of them managed to reach a BBC reporter in London, who then helped the women alert French police on Wednesday.

Six suspected migrants were rescued from the back of a truck in France after one of them was able to contact a BBC reporter for help.

According to the BBC’s Khue B. Luu, an unknown man contacted her Wednesday and connected her to one of the women who spoke to Luu from inside the refrigerated truck.

The women – four Vietnamese nationals and two from Iraq – spent more than 10 hours in the cramped space, surrounded by boxes of bananas, in hopes of making it to the UK or Ireland, according to the BBC.

When they realised that the lorry was heading in the opposite direction, they began to panic. As the air conditioning was turned on, sending the temperature in the tiny compartment plunging, one of the women managed to reach a BBC reporter in London.

“It’s so cold, it [the cooler] keeps blowing,” the woman told the reporter Khue B Luu over text message on Wednesday. She said the lorry doors had been sealed with an iron bar, meaning the women were trapped.

The woman sent Luu two short videos showing a space crammed with boxes, leaving just a few dozen centimetres of floor space where the women could sit. In one video, a woman could be heard saying in English: “I can’t breathe.”

The texter was able to share her live GPS location, allowing Luu to determine that the lorry was on the E15 highway near Dracé, north of Lyon.

Luu sprang into action, messaging colleagues in France. One of them contacted the police station closest to the lorry’s location, sending all the details Luu had gathered. As they waited anxiously for police to intervene, Luu continued to track the vehicle.

"We're so suffocated," came another message from the women, as the authorities attempted to track the lorry. 

The BBC reporter assured the women that they would be saved and told them to keep calm and avoid talking in order to save air. 

Soon afterwards the French police said they managed to intercept the lorry. The driver was arrested and preliminary investigation revealed that the vehicle was from Lithuania and one of the rescued women was a minor. Agencies are now probing the human trafficking angle. 

The incident brought horror memories of the 2019 Essex lorry death where 39 Vietnamese migrants lost their lives while attempting to cross the border.