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NEW YORK. — Eight people were found dead yesterday inside a truck in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas in what police said appeared to be “human trafficking crime.”

Another 28 people were injured — 20 of them severely — and were being treated at seven local hospitals, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus and Fire Chief Charles Hood told reporters.

The police chief said the group included children, but later told CNN that the eight dead were adult men.

He said the truck driver had been arrested.

“We got a call from a Walmart employee about a welfare check in a tractor-trailer that was parked on the lot here,” McManus told a news conference.

“He was approached by someone from that truck, who was asking for water.”

The employee returned with the water and then called the police who “found eight people dead in the back of that trailer,” the police chief said, calling it a “horrific tragedy.”

He said store security footage showed that some vehicles came to pick up some travellers who were on the truck and who had made it out alive.

“We’re looking at a human trafficking crime this evening,” he added.

It was not immediately clear how many people may have survived and fled, McManus said. — AFP.