LILLE, France, Aug 10, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - French medics had to treat Eritrean migrants hidden in a UK-bound refrigerated lorry for hypothermia Saturday, after the driver heard their cries for help, officials told AFP.

The driver heard the group of 15 stowed away in his lorry while at a motorway rest stop, said a senior official with the Pas-de-Calais prefecture in northern France.

"Their state of hypothermia suggests that they had been there for several hours," said Christian Vedelago, head of the local prefect's office.

Four of the migrants had to be hospitalised and another four were declared minors and handed over to the care of an association, he added. The group also included one woman.

Several of those rescued had already received official orders telling them to leave France.

The Moroccan lorry driver, who was transporting frozen vegetables, was not under investigation, said Vedelago.

Despite extensive security checks at the ports in northern France where ferries leave for Britain, and at the cross-Channel tunnel, migrants still try to board lorries bound for England, even if the preferred route is now to cross the sea in small boats.