Hungary: 4 suspects arrested in case of 71 decomposing bodies in truck

Hungarian police have arrested four men after authorities discovered the bodies of dozens of migrants in a truck along the border in Austria.

The four men included three Bulgarians and one Afghan national, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Hungarian police. The men are suspected of being part of a human trafficking network.

Police search a truck carrying dozens of bodies on a highway in Austria on August 27. Photo: Reuters

Austrian police said yesterday that the bodies of 71 migrants had been recovered from a truck abandoned on a highway about 30km from the Austrian-Hungarian border. The migrants may have suffocated or died of thirst, police said.

Sixty of the 71 victims were men. Eight of the dead were women, and the remaining three were children, aged 2, 3 and 8.

Hans Peter Doskozil, the police chief of Burgenland province, believes the car had been parked there for at least 24 hours before it was found. When police opened the door, they found the bodies decomposing in the heat.

The incident in the heart of the European Union (EU) shocked the continent, which has largely failed to deal with the crisis as hundreds of thousands of migrants have poured in from the Middle East, Africa and the Western Balkans since early 2014.

The highway where the truck was found is one of the main migration routes from eastern to western Europe, Austrian police said. Many migrants are travelling from Türkiye to Greece and then across the Balkan Peninsula to Hungary, a journey that is considered less risky than the Mediterranean route.

The location of the lorry carrying the bodies of 71 migrants found. Graphics: SkyNews

According to VNE