The Austrian police announced, on Wednesday, that they had arrested a refrigerated truck driver, carrying more than 40 illegal immigrants, Syrians, Iraqis and Turks, crammed on top of each other without any ventilation.
Austrian police said in a statement that they found the truck on the evening of September 9th, which was parked on a highway in the northeastern state of Lower Austria, with 38 migrants, including six children.
The police added that the migrants explained to them that they "were afraid to die due to lack of oxygen during the journey," and that they were able to stop the truck.
Police said in a statement that when the truck stopped, "some (migrants) took the opportunity to flee," as did its driver, a 51-year-old Turkish resident in Romania.
According to the statement, some drivers passing the highway notified the police of the truck, and immediately sent a helicopter that managed to arrest the driver, whom the authorities suspect edited a larger smuggling network behind him.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the migrants boarded the truck in Romania, for between 6,000 and 8,000 euros, each paying them to cross the EU's external Schengen border separating Romania from Hungary and to reach Western Europe from the Gate of Austria.
The Austrian authorities have not specified the final destination of these migrants, five of whom managed to escape, while others needed health care. "We are currently registering an increase in the numbers of illegal immigrants," said Omar Hajjaoui-Perschner, head of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Lower Austria State.
In August 2015, Austrian authorities near the border with Hungary found a refrigerated truck with 71 decomposing bodies of 59 men, eight women and four children, all of whom died of asphyxiation while piling up on top of each other, in a tragedy that shocked the entire world and prompted countries along the Balkan route to open their borders to hundreds of thousands fleeing war and poverty, particularly from countries in the Middle East.
Last year, the Hungarian judiciary sentenced four people to life in prison for the smuggling network behind the death truck.
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