Austria has begun a manhunt for human traffickers who left at least 20 refugees to die in an abandoned refrigeration truck on a motorway near Vienna.
An Austrian police patrol found the dead refugees on Thursday morning in a truck with Hungarian licence plates on the A4 motorway, near the Hungarian border and 50km from Vienna. The motorway is a popular overland route from the Balkans into northern Europe.
At a conference in the Austrian capital, German chancellor Angela Merkel said she was "shaken" by a tragedy which showed how urgently the European Union needed a new agreement for a fairer distribution of refugees across member states.
“We have more refugees in the world than at any time since World War II,” she said. “The eyes of the world are upon us.”
Austrian national police director Hans-Peter Doskozil said the truck had been abandoned since at least Wednesday. He said it was impossible as yet to give a precise number of the victims, or their origin, because the bodies were already in an advanced state of decomposition.
“The officer who arrived noticed the truck was dripping . . . it could be 20, it could be 40, it could be 50,” said Mr Doskozil. “We can gather that death occurred some time before . . . but this point we can offer no further concrete details as to how the death occurred.”
Smaller vehicles
Austrian police said the 7½ tonne truck was an unusual choice for traffickers, who usually prefer to use smaller vehicles.
Austria’s interior minister, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, urged the EU to step up its efforts to crack down on traffickers who she said were “not interested in the welfare of refugees but maximum profit”.
After a conference in Vienna with Balkan leaders, Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann said the EU needed to deal as seriously with the refugee crisis as the recent financial and economic crisis.
He criticised as "the wrong path" Hungary's decision to erect a razor-wire fence on its outer EU border with Serbia.
Austria announced it would step up checks on border routes and on trains. It has had 80,000 asylum applications this year, a new record, while Germany expects 10 times that number.
To other EU member states who refuse to accept more refugees or binding asylum-seeker quotas, Dr Merkel said: “Don’t doubt our determination.”
Serbian foreign minister Ivica Dacic criticised the EU for leaving her country and its Balkan neighbours to "bear the brunt of the burden".
