Sixty-four people believed to be migrants from Ethiopia have been found dead in a container attached to a truck in Mozambique.

Police and immigration authorities stopped the truck en route from Malawi in the early hours of the morning in the province of Tete, bordered by Malawi on one side and Zimbabwe on the other, they said.

Amelia Direito, spokeswoman for Tete migration services, said the officials checked the container after hearing banging coming from inside. They found 14 people alive among the bodies of 64 who had died from suspected asphyxiation.