Up to 50 Migrants Found Dead in Refrigerator Truck in Austria (VIDEO)

Horrific.

The migrants likely suffocated in the back of the truck, which was probably locked on the outside so the refugees had no way to open to door for air.

At Russia Today, "20 to 50 migrants found dead in truck in Austria, suffocation likely cause."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Austrian Police Find Up to 50 Migrants Dead in Truck":

Europe’s migrant crisis took a deadly turn far from the continent’s coasts Thursday with the discovery in Austria of a truck containing up to 50 decomposing corpses.

The bodies were found in an abandoned delivery truck parked off a highway outside of Vienna, on one of the main migration routes from eastern to western Europe, Austrian police said Thursday.

While more than 2,300 people died this year trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration, the gruesome discovery in inland Europe cast a sharp light on the European Union’s struggle to deal with increasing numbers of refugees crossing its borders.

The quickening flow and its consequences have sparked a debate about whether and how the influx of migrants into border states should be shared among all EU countries.

Many migrants are now traveling from Turkey to Greece and then across the Balkans to Hungary, a course considered less risky than the often deadly sea route. Around 3,000 people a day are currently being moved through the Balkans, the United Nations’ refugee agency estimates. The route has been used by roughly 10 times as many migrants so far this year as over the same period last year, according to the EU border agency Frontex.

The truck with Hungarian license plates was found near the Austrian village of Parndorf, the site of a popular outlet shopping mall about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Hungarian border. It had been left by the side of the highway for more than 24 hours, Austrian police said. Late Thursday they said they couldn’t yet determine the migrants’ cause of death, adding that preliminary inspection suggested the people suffocated or died of thirst.

Austria’s police said they were in contact with their counterparts in Hungary regarding ownership of the truck, which appeared to be a refrigerator vehicle previously used to transport chickens.

Separately, Janos Lazar, minister in charge of the Hungarian prime minister’s office, said the vehicle had been purchased from a Slovak firm and was registered to a Romanian national in Hungary.

“This shows once again that we need to take responsibility and offer refugees asylum,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said at a conference on the Western Balkans in Vienna on Thursday. Mr. Faymann emphasized the need for European countries to cooperate, secure the union’s borders, and “fairly share” the refugee burden...

More.