Deathcans & Slaves

Deathcans

You may heared the term 'deathcan' before, but what does it exactly mean? Deathcans are usually cargocannisters jettisoned from ships into space with people still onboard. As these people have no way of moving nor communicating they are left to die as the oxygen rapidly decreases.
But who would do such thing? And why?
The main culprits of these actions are illegal slave smugglers, they can be capsuleers, but not necessarily so, dumping their slave-cargo if they risk being caught. Their hands come clean as they pass inspection, but their cargo of illegal slaves is doomed to die a slow suffocation death in space.
Other culprits are capsuleers, doing it out of cruelty, or for twisted games of gambling, seeing who can last the longest as the poor victims slowly suffocate. Some even just do it out boredom, or because they changed minds of transporting the people...

We had two recent experiences with such deathcans, as detailed in the upcoming reports.

An emergency call

As I was checking on some paperwork, an emergency call came in from Tahrmal Nalthkh, an employee of the Disciples of Ston. He requested assistance at Niarja in rescuing slaves from multiple deathcans.
As the Arcology HQ is closeby, a mere 4 jumps, I undocked and confirmed to him I would lend my help. With coordination, we managed to save all 93 people, almost all slaves.
As the cans were found close to the Kaaputenen gate, it was clear what happened, a slave-smuggler dumped his illegal slave-cargo to prevent being caught by Caldari customs.
Lucky, thanks to our combined effort, we managed to save these people from certain death. I transferred the rescued slaves to the Disciples of Ston as they have more experience in re-integrating slaves into society as free people. Illegal slaves are usually harshly treated, and require good counselling & guidance to be able to function as free people.

It's important to note that rescuing people from deathcans flag you as criminal by Concord, so you need to have a fast & agile ship, to outrun triggerhappy capsuleers.

Abandoned at Uedama

Travelling through Uedama, I noticed a can at a strange place, right next to the Sivela gate. This is odd, as normally wreckage & rescue-cans are a good dozen kilometer away from gates. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a deathcan!
Aboard were 7 houseslaves, jettisoned for an unknown reason by a capsuleer. I ordered my crew to get them aboard the transport as soon as they could as Uedama is a dangerous place. Any transport not hurrying itself in the system can be marked for destruction by the local capsuleerthugs.
Now the houseslaves are at the Arcology project, where they'll receive assistance to be integrated as free people into the Aurora community.
As houseslaves are generally well treated, this should go without much trouble.