Four suspects in Austria's migrant truck tragedy were remanded in custody in Hungary on Saturday, as Austrian police rescued three "severely dehydrated" refugee children packed into another vehicle. The young children were hospitalised after the truck containing 26 "illegal foreigners" from Syria, Bangladesh and Afghanistan was pulled over by police early Friday after a chase close to the German border.
"If the journey had continued the situation could probably have become critical," a spokesman for police in Upper Austria state told AFP. The Romanian driver, who had refused to pull over for a routine check, was arrested. The incident came a day after the decomposing bodies of 71 migrants including four children were found in an abandoned truck on a motorway in eastern Austria near the Hungarian border, provoking international revulsion.
Saying he was "horrified and heartbroken" by the gruesome discovery and a new Mediterranean shipwreck claiming at least 111 lives, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it was high time for concerted action to tackle the crisis. "I appeal to all governments involved to provide comprehensive responses, expand safe and legal channels of migration and act with humanity, compassion and in accordance with their international obligations," Ban said.
The abandoned truck, found Thursday on an Austrian motorway in the baking sun near the Hungarian border, contained the tightly packed bodies of 59 men, eight women and four children. They were thought to be Syrians. The tragic discovery highlighted the dangers faced by people fleeing conflict and hardship in the Middle East and Africa even once they reach Europe, with many putting their fate in the hands of profit-hungry people smugglers.
In the new Mediterranean disaster off Libya, rescue workers said Saturday that in addition to the 111 confirmed dead, "dozens" were still missing. A total of 198 among the 400 on board have been rescued. The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have fled conflict and hardship in the Middle East and Africa for a better life in Europe this year, and 2,500 more have died in the attempt, mostly in the Mediterranean.
"My little sister, someone climbed on her back and pushed her down. When I saw her for the last time, she was underwater with him on top of her," Pakistani Shefaz Hamza, 17, a survivor who also lost his mother in the latest tragedy, told AFP in Libya. In Hungary, three Bulgarians and one Afghan arrested over the Austrian case were remanded in custody on Saturday until September 29 in Kecskemet, a town near the Serbian border then over 140,000 have crossed this year.
Police believe them to be low-ranking members of one of the numerous, often unscrupulous human trafficking gangs that transport thousands of migrants coming to Europe - in return for sometimes exorbitant amounts of money. The four suspects - the Bulgarians are 29, 30, 50 and the Afghan 28 - on Saturday declared their innocence and said they would appeal the court decision. Only one had legal residence in Hungary.
The discovery in Austria was a rare occurrence on land in a prosperous country when so many migrants have died at sea. Police said the people may have been dead for up to two days. But as illustrated by the latest case with the three children, such a tragedy was only a matter of time as tens of thousands of people seek to make it north from Greece, Italy and Hungary to places like Germany and Sweden.
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