CHANGLE, Fujian -- Smartly dressed in a Calvin Klein T-shirt, jeans and white trainers, the teenager props up a motorbike in Changle, a city in the southern Chinese province of Fujian. His hair flopping over sunglasses, he flashes a shy grin at the camera. Jin Xicai hardly resembles the stereotype refugee, desperately fleeing poverty and persecution. Yet within months of that photo, the 18-year-old would begin a tortuous 10-week escape across Russia and central Europe, only to perish one border short of his goal.

If his family's fears are confirmed by British police, Jin was among the 56 Chinese immigrants who suffocated to death inside a tomato truck last week en route from Rotterdam to Dover.

"We haven't slept for three nights," said Jin's father yesterday. His mother is inconsolable, crying in a corner of their home in a village outside Changle. "We just want to know if he is alive or dead," his father said. "We can't get news from anywhere, and we daren't go to the police."