Dozens of Migrants Found Dead in Truck in Austria
Local Editor
More than 70 refugees' bodies have been found dead in a tractor trailer in eastern Austria, the Interior Ministry said on Friday. It appears the migrants, whose bodies have begun to decompose, suffocated in the back of the truck.
Earlier, Austrian police said the death toll was between 20 and 50 people.
"Work continued throughout the night, but I expect all the bodies have been removed now," Helmut Marban, a police spokesman for the Burgenland province, told Reuters, adding that forensic investigators "are still at the lorry and trying to establish all the facts."
The food delivery truck was found parked on the shoulder of the A4 highway near the town of Parndorf, according to an interior ministry spokesperson.
"Unfortunately there are many dead people in there," the spokesperson told Reuters. He described the people as refugees, but said he did not have an exact number of those found in the lorry.
Meanwhile, Austrian police say the number of those dead could range from 20 to 50.
"The level of information is currently very poor. One can imagine how the condition of these people is. Therefore we cannot yet say how many dead there are also," National Police Director Hanspeter Doskozil said.
Police said it might take until Friday to count all the bodies, adding that they believe the migrants were dead before the truck entered Austria.
"One can maybe assume that the deaths occurred one-and-a-half to two days ago," Doskozil told a news conference, adding that "many things" indicated they were already dead when they crossed the border.
The truck, which has Hungarian license plates and was near the Hungarian capital Budapest on Wednesday, is believed to have been abandoned for several days.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, János Lázár, said that Hungarian law enforcement are working with Austrian police to track down the driver.
However, Austrian authorities said they believe the driver may have left the country.
Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said during a press conference in Eisenstadt that "today is a dark day."
She spoke of the "despicable methods" of migrant smugglers, saying they "belong behind bars."
Earlier on Thursday, Austrian police said they had stopped three vehicles suspected of carrying refugees. Included in that number was a van which had taken 34 migrants, including 10 children, into the country.
It comes amid a worsening migrant crisis in Europe, with tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa - primarily Syria - trying to make their way to Europe's borderless Schengen zone.
More than 28,300 people applied for refugee protection in Austria in the first half of 2015.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian prime minister's chief of staff says the number of migrants trying to reach Western Europe through Hungary could reach 300,000 by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said everyone is "shaken" by the news of the migrant deaths in Austria.
"We are of course all shaken by the appalling news," Merkel told a news conference at a summit on the West Balkans in Vienna.
"This reminds us that we must tackle quickly the issue of immigration and in a European spirit - that means in a spirit of solidarity - and to find solutions."
Merkel is meeting with Balkan leaders in Vienna to discuss Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II.
Countries taking part include Macedonia and Serbia, both of which are among the hardest hit, as they are transit nations for those trying to reach western and northern Europe.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
