More than 10,000 migrants, including many women with babies and small children, have crossed into Serbia over the past few days and headed toward Hungary. Photo / AP
More than 10,000 migrants, including many women with babies and small children, have crossed into Serbia over the past few days and headed toward Hungary. Photo / AP
Officials launch hunt for truck driver while European nations fail to agree on how to deal with wave of people
Austrian authorities launched an international probe yesterday into the deaths of more than 70 suspected migrants, with forensic experts struggling to count the badly decomposed corpses left in a tragedy that immediately touched off a new round of recriminations over Europe's escalating refugee crisis.
The bodies were discovered after a highway patrol officer investigated a liquid and putrid smell coming from the back of a truck abandoned near the Austrian village of Parndorf on the main expressway between Vienna and Budapest.
Last night, police in Hungary arrested the truck's owner, a Bulgarian national of Lebanese origin, and two drivers.
The tragedy came as top European officials met in the Austrian capital, partly to discuss the biggest wave of refugees pouring into Europe since World War II, with most of them coming from war-torn countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The record surge so far this year has brought almost 300,000 desperate migrants into Europe by sea, surpassing the 217,000 who arrived during the whole of 2014.
Many are asylum seekers travelling from southern entry points such as Greece towards promised lands like Germany, Austria and Sweden, where successful applicants can win generous benefits.
But European nations remain divided over how much responsibility to take for their safe passage, as well as which nations should take them in.
Deaths of migrants at sea and, to a lesser degree, on land are rising. Yesterday, hundreds were feared dead after two boats carrying about 500 migrants sank off Libya.
About 4400 migrants were picked up in the Channel of Sicily last weekend in what the International Organisation for Migration called one of the busiest weekends for search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean this year.
A booming smuggling industry has arisen and authorities suspect the bodies found in the truck late on Thursday were the result of a trafficking operation gone terribly wrong.
Austria reacted to the tragedy by announcing plans geared more towards blocking than aiding asylum seekers, vowing to increase border controls and impose stiffer penalties on smugglers.
In Vienna, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was "shaken by the terrible news that up to 50 people have lost their lives because they ended up in a situation where traffickers did not care about this life". The toll was later updated.
"This reminds us that we must tackle the issue of immigration quickly and in a European spirit," she said. "That means in a spirit of solidarity - to find solutions."
Austrian officials were searching for witnesses, as well as conducting an international probe. The truck had a temporary Hungarian licence plate. The side of the 7.5-tonne vehicle was emblazoned with the logo of a Slovakian chicken processing company, whose parent company said the truck had been sold in 2014, according to the Associated Press.
Hungarian officials said the truck's licence plate was registered to a person living in the city of Kecskemet.
Hans-Peter Doskozil, chief of police for the eastern Austrian state of Burgenland, said the bodies were being kept on the truck in a climate-controlled inspection facility in the city of Nickelsdorf that was slated to become a refugee centre.
Doskozil said the victims appeared to have been dead for at least 36 hours. Showing effects of the summer heat, the bodies were so decomposed that officials initially had difficulty determining the gender and ages of the victims. Later, it was revealed eight were women and three children.
Dorottya Kelemen, a journalist with Austrian public broadcaster ORF who was at the scene, reported that the side of the truck had been dented. To her, it looked as if the victims had tried to force their way out.
Police were still establishing the cause of death, but a spokesman said they suspected suffocation.
Doskozil said: "Despite the tragic situation, we are confronted with the fact that we are expecting a massive increase" in border crossings.
More than 70 migrants were found dead in the truck parked on the Austrian highway leading from the Hungarian border, police said. Photo / AP
UN talks hamper efforts to stem tide
Europe has few tools at its disposal to mitigate the migrant surge, and efforts to broaden the region's arsenal have been marked by dissension and delays.
In May, European leaders agreed to launch a military operation to intercept and destroy smugglers' ships in the Mediterranean. But the effort has bogged down in negotiations at the United Nations.
Even if it advances, a sea-based military operation would be of little use to address the surging numbers along Europe's eastern flank, where migrants travel in flimsy rubber dinghies to reach Greece before continuing northward through the Balkans over land.
Should the victims be declared migrants, the tragedy would highlight the shifting geography of Europe's refugee crisis as well as its mounting death toll.
Last year, the majority of migrants crossing into Europe did so via Libya, risking a dangerous sea passage. But this year, the epicentre of the crisis has shifted. More migrants - mostly Syrians and Iraqis - are now travelling from Turkey into financially crippled Greece, which is offering little or no aid and is separated from the rest of the European Union by the Balkans. So migrants are making another journey over land, risking criminal gangs and dangerous passages to make it to nations further northwest that are offering generous benefits for those refugees found to be genuine asylum seekers.
Most migrant deaths continue to happen at sea - with at least 2440 so far this year. But more than a dozen migrants have also died on land journeys this year, according to Doctors without Borders.
In recent days, the situation has grown more dire, as a throng of refugees attempts to rush through Hungary, which is building a 160km razor wire fence on its border with Serbia to keep them out.
Frantic scenes have occurred as migrants search for ways through the razor wire. Many migrants are turning to smugglers to get them through.
