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Saturday April 27, 2024

Around 50 bodies found in Austria

VIENNA: The bodies of between 20 and 50 migrants were found in a truck in Austria on Thursday, highlighting the dark side of Europe’s migrant crisis as regional leaders struggle to stem the massive flow of people desperately trying to reach the EU.The gruesome discovery on a motorway near the

By our correspondents
August 28, 2015
VIENNA: The bodies of between 20 and 50 migrants were found in a truck in Austria on Thursday, highlighting the dark side of Europe’s migrant crisis as regional leaders struggle to stem the massive flow of people desperately trying to reach the EU.
The gruesome discovery on a motorway near the Slovakia and Hungary borders was thought to be the worst tragedy on land in Europe’s worst migrant crisis since 1945.
Police said the vehicle — which had the markings of a Slovakian poultry company and bore Hungarian number plates — contained between 20 and 50 bodies.
It was not yet clear how they had died.
“Today is a dark day... This tragedy affects us all deeply,” Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said at a press conference.
She said Austria would tighten border controls and intensify police checks on international trains, and called on the other 27 EU member states to show “zero tolerance” for people smugglers.
The deaths came a day after at least 55 migrants were found dead in stricken boats in the Mediterranean, adding to a toll of more than 2,300 people who have drowned while attempting to reach Europe by sea.