We could imagine that maybe 20 people have died, but it could also be 40 or 50 …
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Burgenland province police chief Peter Doskozil said the lorry was abandoned on Wednesday and its back door was left open, exposing the bodies. Karl-Heinz Grundboeck, a spokesman for the Austrian interior ministry, said his country gets 2,000 asylum applications per week.
The police found the abandoned lorry in eastern Austria, near the Hungarian border, this morning.
Doskozil said that there could be anywhere between 20 and 50 bodies inside. They add that judging by the size of the truck, as many as 50 bodies could be inside. It is alleged he gave the children in the van a sedative to keep them quiet. All Catholic churches in the city planned to ring their bells during the service.
In Vienna, not far from where the truck was found, a summit is being held to try and devise a solution for the migrant crisis. “We all know people traffickers are criminals”, Austria’s Interior Minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner said. “Anyone still thinking that they’re kind helpers can not be helped”, she added.
“This is a warning to work to resolve this problem and show solidarity”, she said.
Hyza, seated in Topoľčany, west Slovakia, says on its website that since 2006 it has been a part of Agrofert, a giant holding owned by Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis.
The truck bears the logo of a Slovakian poultry company, Hyza, which said in a statement that the vehicle no longer belonged to the firm – but the new owners had not removed the branding.
It has been towed away for forensic examination.
Meanwhile, EU member state Hungary, which is a member of the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone and has become the bloc’s main entry point for migrants arriving by land along the Balkans route, was not at the meeting.
The nationalities of the victims were not immediately clear, but Europe has been inundated by a recent flood of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, particularly war-torn Syria.
They are taking the perilous “Balkan Corridor”, with numerous countries on the way feeling the strain of so many people passing through.
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Police are unable to say exactly home many people died, but the bodies remain in the truck while foresnic teams comb the aftermath. The deluge of migrants prompted the country to build a new border fence to keep them out.
