Austria police finds up to 50 bodies of Migrants in Truck

Police in Austria discovered as many as 50 decomposing bodies suspected to be migrants in a abandoned truck on a highway East of Vienna on Thursday.
Policemen on patrol discovered the truck on the highway that links Budapest and Vienna, though the precise toll was yet to be determined, but the figure is expected to be around 50, said Hans-Peter Doskozil, director of police in the Eastern state of Burgenland.

Mr. Doskozil further stated that the Austrian police had contacted the authorities in neighboring Hungary, which has accelerated the building of a fence along the border with Serbia in an effort to block the flow of tens of thousands of migrants who have worked their way up the length of the Balkans in recent weeks.

The border fence has threatened to complicate and even cut off what has become an increasingly accessible route for the migrants, many of whom are fleeing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was quoted as saying “We are all shaken by this terrible news that up to 50 people have lost their lives because they got into a situation where smugglers did not care about their lives,”.

“Such a tragic death,” she added, emphasized the need for Europe to pull together and ease the current crisis, part of the biggest wave of migrants since World War II.

Austria’s interior minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, called it a “dark day” and urged everyone across the 28-nation European Union to move harshly against human traffickers.

“These are not well-minded helpers,” she said. “They are not concerned with the welfare of the migrants. They care only about profit.”

The discovery of the truck not only threatened to overshadow the conference but also highlighted the continuing divides and dysfunction of the European Union in handling a migration crisis that is straining resources.