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At least 20 migrants found dead inside lorry in Austria Austrian police fear as many as 50 migrants dead inside lorry
(about 2 hours later)
At least 20 migrants have been found dead inside a parked lorry in eastern Austria, media reports said on Thursday, with indications that they had suffocated. The bodies of at least 20 migrants - and possibly as many as 40 or 50 - have been found inside a parked lorry in eastern Austria, police have said, indicating that they had suffocated.
According to the Krone newspaper, the bodies were discovered on Thursday morning on the Austria’s A4 motorway between Neusiedl and Parndorf. The truck had been abandoned on the hard shoulder of the road near Parndorf. The partially decomposed remains were discovered on Thursday morning on Austria’s A4 motorway between Neusiedl and Parndorf. The truck had been abandoned on the hard shoulder of the road near Parndorf. It had apparently been there since Wednesday.
Road employees spotted the lorry and alerted the police. Detectives then made the horrific discovery. A manhunt for the driver is now underway. Hans Peter Doskozil, head of police in the district of Burgenland, said there were at least 20 dead but that the death toll could go up to 40 or 50. The state of the bodies made establishing an exact figure difficult. The identities were also not known, he said.
At a press conference Austria’s interior minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, denounced the people smugglers responsible and said: “Today is a dark day.” She said that Austria would adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards the mafia gangs responsible for the tragedy. He added: “The deaths already occurred some time ago. We can make no concrete assumptions about the origin or cause [of death]. We can assume, however, that they are refugees.”
On Tuesday Austrian police arrested three drivers on suspicion of transporting migrants from Syria and other war-torn areas into the European Union. One of them had driven 34 people packed into the back of a white van across the Austrian border. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, attending a summit in Vienna on Europe’s refugee emergency, said she was “shaken by the awful news”. “This reminds us that we in Europe need to tackle the problem quickly and find solutions in the spirit of solidarity,” she said.
The group included 10 small children, whom the driver abandoned by the side of the motorway near the city of Bruck an der Leitha. According to police, the migrants said in interviews that they “were hardly able to breath” during the trip. According to the Krone newspaper, a road employee mowing the grass alerted police after noticing putrid liquid dripping from the back of the white refrigerated vehicle. Its door had been left ajar. Detectives then made the horrific discovery. A manhunt for the driver is underway.
Forensic teams at the scene were examining the lorry, which has Hungarian number plates. Channel 4 News’ Lindsey Hilsum tweeted that the smell of death at the scene was overwhelming.
Just drove past truck on A4 in Austria with 50 dead refugees inside. Terrible smell of death as we passed. pic.twitter.com/a2AiDnsy5VJust drove past truck on A4 in Austria with 50 dead refugees inside. Terrible smell of death as we passed. pic.twitter.com/a2AiDnsy5V
The vehicle used to belong to the Slovak chicken meat company Hyza. It still has the slogan “Honest chicken” on the side. The company said it sold the lorry in 2014. According to the Hungarian government it is registered to a Romanian citizen from the central city of Kecskemét.
In a statement Austria’s interior minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, denounced the traffickers as criminals and said: “Today is a dark day.” She said Austria would adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards the mafia gangs responsible.
She said: “This tragedy is a concern for us all. Smugglers are criminals. They have no interest in the welfare of refugees. Only profit.”
The discovery came as leaders from the EU and western Balkans gathered at the Vienna conference to discuss how to deal with Europe’s worst migrant crisis since the second world war. The lorry tragedy overshadowed the meeting.
The EU’s enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn tweeted: “Just another terrible incident, illustrating the urgent need for quick and determined common action.”
Austria’s chancellor, Werner Faymann, said it was crucial for nations to work together on a solution to the migrant crisis. “Today refugees lost the lives they had tried to save by escaping, but lost them at the hands of traffickers,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Faymann called for a quota system to be imposed, with refugees distributed fairly among all 28 EU member states. Germany backs the Austrian plan, but many EU states including the UK are strongly opposed. Without a system “we won’t solve this challenge,” Faymann said.
Vienna also wants to increase controls on Europe’s outer borders and to take co-ordinated action against smugglers. Germany’s foreign minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier said he was opposed to a new fence being constructed by Hungary on its border with Serbia. “We are not advocates of fences,” Steinmeier said.
On Tuesday Austrian police arrested three drivers on suspicion of transporting migrants from Syria and other war-torn areas into the European Union. One of them had driven 34 people packed into the back of a white van across the Austrian border.
The group included 10 small children, whom the driver abandoned by the side of the motorway near the city of Bruck an der Leitha. According to police, the migrants said in interviews they were hardly able to breath during the trip.
They had asked repeatedly for more air, but the driver had ignored their requests, police added, and had driven without stopping from Serbia to Austria.They had asked repeatedly for more air, but the driver had ignored their requests, police added, and had driven without stopping from Serbia to Austria.