38 Refugees Found in Refrigerated Truck in Austria

Austrian police found 38 refugees in a refrigerated truck near Vienna. The smuggler had charged each of them between six and eight thousand euros. The refugees were terrified of the possibility of suffocation. Some were given first aid.

Austrian police arrested a 51-year-old Turkish man on Wednesday evening a week ago (September 9) in the city of “Bruck an der Leitha” on suspicion of human trafficking. He is accused of transporting 38 refugees in a refrigerated truck. The smuggler had received between six and eight thousand euros from each of them. They told police that they had been severely terrified of death by suffocation.

The local police had been informed that a large number of people had exited a truck on the road entering the city of Bruck an der Leitha and had gone into hiding in the surrounding area. Following this report, police intervened with a helicopter and found 38 people in the area. These individuals were from Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. Police temporarily detained these people. Some of them were in poor physical condition, and police sought assistance from emergency services to attend to them.

No way for air to enter

Police discovered that in the section of the truck where these people were, there was no way for air to enter. The documents related to the truck’s cargo were forged and the vehicle’s odometer had been tampered with. The refugees said they had attempted to get themselves from Turkey to Romania through different routes.

In Romania, they were accommodated with another group for an extended period in a dilapidated house. There were 150 people in total. They then continued their journey from a forested area on the Romanian border.

Karl Nehammer, Austria’s Interior Minister, said that human trafficking and illegal migration must be taken seriously, and all Western Balkan countries must cooperate with each other in this regard. According to Austrian police officials, illegal migration is on the rise. Police investigations are focused on finding human trafficking networks. They said they suspect the number of smugglers and victims may increase.

Source: DW