Women aiming to reach UK or Ireland realised lorry was heading in wrong direction and contacted BBC journalist

Six women have been rescued from the back of a refrigerated lorry in France after a panicked text message to a BBC reporter set off a frantic cross-border search.

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.