Just as European politicians try to deal with a growing refugee crisis, up to 50 refugees were found dead in the back of a truck in Austria today.
The truck was found abandoned by the side of a highway in Burgenland. Burgenland police chief Hans Peter Doskozil told the local media that it had been sitting there at least since Wednesday, reports BBC News. It was a refrigerated truck with licence plates from Hungary. It featured the logos of Hyza, a poultry company based in Slovakia. However, the company said it didn’t belong to them any longer.
Doskozil said that there could be anywhere between 20 and 50 bodies inside. Some had even begun to decompose. The exact number of bodies has not been released.
“This tragedy affects us all deeply,” Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said, reports Al Jazeera. “Human traffickers are criminals. Anyone still thinking that they're kind helpers cannot be helped.”
This incident is the latest that has highlighted a growing crisis in Europe as refugees try to escape conflicts in the Middle East. The announcement came just a day after the Italian coast guard said that 54 migrants were dead in boats in the Mediterranean Sea, reports CNN.
There is currently a summit on migration in Vienna, with Balkan states in particular hoping that there is a solution to control the growing number of migrants traveling to Europe through their borders. Last month alone saw 107,500 migrants crossing into the European Union.