The vehicle, which contained between 20 and 50 bodies, was found on a parking strip off the highway in Burgenland state, police spokesman Hans Peter Doskozil said at a Thursday press conference with Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
"This tragedy affects us all deeply," Mikl-Leitner said. "Human traffickers are criminals. Anyone still thinking that they're kind helpers cannot be helped."
It was not immediately clear how the people in the truck had died, since bodies had begun to decompose. Nor was it clear how long they had been there.
"We can assume that it could be 20 people who died. It could also be 40, it could be 50 people," the police chief said.
The truck, which had Hungarian number plates, had apparently been standing off the highway since Wednesday.
A Hungarian government official said a Romanian citizen had registered the number plate in the eastern Hungarian town of Kecskemet.
More than 28,300 people applied for refugee protection in Austria in the first half of the year, with many coming from Syria.
'Must take responsibility'
"The refugees who died today wanted to save their own lives by fleeing, but instead lost their lives at the hands of traffickers," Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann told the summit in Vienna.
"It shows once again how necessary it is to save human lives by fighting criminal traffickers. It shows that we must take responsibility and give asylum to those people who are fleeing."
The German chancellor said everyone at the summit had been "shaken" by "appalling" news of the bodies found.
"This reminds us that we must tackle quickly the issue of immigration and in a European spirit - that means in a spirit of solidarity - and to find solutions," Merkel said....
aljazeera.com
27/8/15
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