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Austrian Police Find 24 Afghan Migrants Locked in Van Austrian Police Find 24 Afghan Migrants Locked in a Van
(about 13 hours later)
VIENNA — Twenty-four Afghans who were locked inside a van barely avoided suffocation and were discovered after a nighttime police chase on highways on the outskirts of Vienna, the police said early Wednesday. VIENNA — In the latest example of the callousness of Europe’s traffickers now preying on migrants surging across the Continent, the police here in Austria’s capital freed 24 Afghans, most of them teenagers, who were locked inside a van and barely avoided suffocation.
Officers noticed the van during their patrols, said Thomas Keiblinger, a spokesman for the police in Vienna. The police have increased such patrols in the hopes of finding human traffickers who are exploiting the despair of thousands of migrants, many of whom are trying to flee war in the Middle East and plan to seek asylum in Europe. Police officials said Wednesday that the episode included a police chase through Vienna’s streets and a warning shot fired before officers caught the driver and discovered the cargo.
Last week, a truck that had been abandoned in the emergency lane of an Austrian highway was found with the bodies of 71 people, believed to be migrants, inside. Officers noticed the vehicle, which had Romanian license plates, as part of increased patrols that began Sunday as part of a crackdown on human smuggling after 71 migrants — thought to be from the Middle East — were found dead in the back of an abandoned truck last Thursday on the main highway between Hungary and Austria.
The 24 Afghans were crammed into a space about 6 feet wide, 10 feet long and less than 6 feet high in a white van that traffickers had adapted to lock in their human cargo, Mr. Keiblinger said. Since then, thousands of migrants who are fleeing war in the Middle East and beyond have boarded trains to reach their goal, which is often asylum in Germany or Sweden. But others continue to risk inhumane treatment by smugglers as well as the chance of detention by the police, who have slowed traffic at Austria’s border with Hungary to inspect for human cargo.
The traffickers had welded shut a bolt on the back doors as well as the sliding door on the side, and they had put bars on the back windows, Mr. Keiblinger said. The sole window between the driver’s seat and the back of the van had been blacked out and firmly closed, he said. The 24 Afghans, who were rescued early Tuesday, had been crammed into a space about 6 feet by 9 feet, and less than 6 feet high, said Thomas Keiblinger, a spokesman for the Vienna police.
“In effect, it was a jail cell,” said Mr. Keiblinger, who described photographs showing the Afghans standing and kneeling in the van in the early hours of Tuesday. “They had no air, it was basically a situation of life or death.” The smugglers had welded shut a bolt on the back doors as well as a sliding door on the side, and had put bars on the back windows, Mr. Keiblinger said. The sole window between the driver’s seat and the back of the van had been blacked out and closed, he said.
Around midnight on Monday, the police became suspicious of the people in the white van and began chasing it. The vehicle was forced off a highway and onto a Vienna street, where the driver eventually stopped and fled on foot, Mr. Keiblinger said. “In effect, it was a jail cell,” said Mr. Keiblinger, who described photographs showing the Afghans, all ages 16 to 20, standing and kneeling in the van. “They had no air; it was basically a situation of life or death.”
The driver did not stop after an officer fired a warning shot into the ground, Mr. Keiblinger said. He said the Afghans reported being herded into the vehicle by an accomplice of the driver. They did not say where this happened, but Mr. Keiblinger said it was most likely in Hungary, close to the border, which is about an hour’s drive from Vienna.
A police dog picked up the driver’s scent and led officers to a shopping center where a suspect was arrested. The police described him as a 30-year-old Romanian. The police here became suspicious of the vehicle around midnight on Monday and began to chase the van. The van was forced off a highway and onto Vienna streets, where the driver eventually stopped and ran away, Mr. Keiblinger said.
Austria has detained more than 100 people in connection with people smuggling in the past month. The driver did not stop even after an officer fired a warning shot into the ground, Mr. Keiblinger said.
The Afghan migrants were taken to a police station for questioning, Mr. Keiblinger said, and they are believed to have boarded the vehicle in Hungary, most likely close to the border with Austria, about an hour’s drive from Vienna. A police dog named Iceman picked up the driver’s scent and led officers to a shopping center where they arrested the suspect, described as a 30-year-old Romanian man.
Had they remained in the van much longer, he said, they would have died. Mr. Keiblinger indicated that the 24 Afghans would probably join the many migrants heading for Germany. They all declined to apply for asylum in Austria, he said, and were freed after the police gave them food and drink and questioned them.
None of the Afghans wanted to apply for asylum in Austria, Mr. Keiblinger said. They indicated that they preferred to travel to Germany, he added, and they were released. Since Austria stepped up police action late Sunday, officers in the eastern province of Burgenland, which borders Hungary, have arrested 24 suspected smugglers and freed hundreds of migrants stashed in vehicles, a police spokesman, Helmut Marban, told Austria Press Agency. On Sunday alone, 239 migrants were freed, followed by 307 on Monday and 305 on Tuesday, he said.
In Vienna, according to the police, four suspected traffickers were arrested on Monday and Tuesday. In the first case, the police freed eight people — four men, two women and two girls, all said to have been from Iraq — from two vehicles with Swedish license plates. A Canadian and a Serbian citizen were detained. In the second, a 47-year-old Serb was arrested after the police stopped his vehicle — specially adapted to hide people — and freed 10 Iraqis.
Austria’s interior minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, visited the police station where the van carrying the 24 Afghans was stored and pronounced the traffickers “impossible, and inhuman.”
“I don’t think any of us can imagine what fear the people in this transport had to live through,” said Ms. Mikl-Leitner, who planned to visit Macedonia and meet her Balkan counterparts on Friday to get a picture of how many migrants are still massed along their hoped-for route to Europe, and what action is feasible.
The discovery of the 71 bodies last week has shocked this prosperous Alpine nation, which has been basking in unusual summer heat and its usual throngs of tourists.
The visitors are still there, but many Austrians have expressed concern about the much poorer and more desperate migrants whose arrival has prompted an outpouring of sympathy, but also propelled longstanding populists in the anti-immigration Freedom Party to new highs in opinion polls.
On Monday night, as thousands of migrants headed west from Hungary on trains that were eventually allowed to Vienna and beyond, a demonstration called at short notice to show solidarity with migrants drew 20,000 people, according to the police. On the same evening, prominent and ordinary Austrians flocked to St. Stephen’s Cathedral for a Mass led by Archbishop Christoph Schönborn, the head of the country’s Roman Catholic Church, in memory of the 71 people, including three boys and a little girl, found dead last week.