Austria raises migrant truck death toll to over 70

More than 70 bodies have been recovered from a lorry found abandoned near the border with Hungary, officials have said. The announcement from the Austrian interior ministry on Friday represents a significant rise in the number of people, thought to be migrants, who are known to have died. Police had originally put the toll at 50. The Austrian authorities gave more details at a news conference on Friday morning. The Austrian police chief has said three people have been arrested in Hungary which it is believed will lead them to the people behind the truck deaths. Reports quoting Hungarian police say a Romanian citizen who drove the van suspected of human trafficking has been arrested. The authorities say 71 bodies were found inside the lorry: 59 men, eight women and four children. They included a group of Syrian migrants, according to the Austrian police chief. Austrian and Hungarian police have been trying to find the truck driver. The refrigerated, air-tight truck was found on Thursday by an Austrian motorway patrol with fluid seeping out. The bodies were probably inside for two days. On Thursday Local police chief Hans Peter Doskozil described the moment the truck doors were opened: “Our initial suspicions were confirmed. Inside the truck there were numerous dead bodies in an advanced state of decay.” The vehicle bore the logo of a Slovakian poultry company, Hyza, which reportedly says the lorry had been sold. It was found on Thursday by a motorway patrol on the A4, one of the main routes to Vienna. It had been seen near the Hungarian capital Budapest on Wednesday. The vehicle was taken to a nearby veterinary hospital where a full examination was carried out through the night. The grisly discovery coincided with a key summit on migration in Vienna, where Angela Merkel began talks with six Balkan nations and senior EU officials. The German Chancellor said the number of refugees in Europe had reached the highest level since the Second World War. The lorry tragedy focuses attention on Austria’s southeast, where refugees travel to Europe through the Balkans and Hungary trying to get to Vienna or on to Germany. It has also brought calls for the Balkans to be given more attention as part of an EU-wide solution to the migration crisis. #Austria now estimates 70 suffocated bodies found in back of #Hungary abandoned truck. #EU words of shock won’t save lives, action will.— Peter Bouckaert (@bouckap) August 28, 2015 #Deaths by suffocation in #Austria: don’t just look 4 lorry driver. Look at the nat. & EU pols that create the need 4 smugglers— IrishRefugeeCouncil (@IrishRefugeeCo) August 28, 2015