Migrant children ‘close to death after being loaded in lorry like animals’

Three children are in a critical condition after they were rescued from a lorry carrying 26 migrants in Austria. The two girls and a boy, aged five and six, were found in a dire state when police stopped the vehicle after a chase near the town of St Peter am Hart on the border with Germany. Austrian police spokesman David Furtner described it as “a very close call”, saying the children were already experiencing dizziness due to being in the hot lorry for so long and “would not have made it much longer”.

The driver did not give a damn about the people in the back. We would not transport animals under these conditions

Police spokesman David Furtner

Meanwhile, a Hungarian court ordered the preliminary arrest of four suspects in the deaths of 71 migrants found in an abandoned truck in Austria. The court agreed with prosecutors that the three Bulgarians and one Afghan should be remanded in custody for a month while investigations into Thursday’s tragedy continue. The four suspects – the three Bulgarians are aged 29, 30 and 50, while the Afghan is 28 years old – deny wrongdoing but police say they are low-ranking members of a human trafficking gang.

[They should be jailed] due to the exceptional nature of the crime, the subsequent deaths of the smuggled persons and the perpetration of the criminal act of people-smuggling in a businesslike manner.

Hungarian prosecutors

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