Hungarian police have arrested the driver of a lorry found on an Austrian motorway with the decomposing bodies of more than 70 people inside. The driver has been proven to be a Romanian. Seven smugglers also linked to the lorry had been held by authorities in Hungary. But the main organisers are still at large, and believed to be in Romania.
The death toll was raised on Friday from initial estimates of 20 to 50 following the discovery of the remains on Thursday morning on Austria’s A4 motorway between Neusiedl and Parndorf. The truck, which had been abandoned on the hard shoulder of the road near Parndorf, had apparently been there since Wednesday. Austrian police said all those on board appeared to have suffocated and died before they entered the country.
Austrian police said of the 71 dead, 59 were men, eight women and four children, and included Syrian refugees.
The lorry set off from Budapest in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and reached the Hungarian-Austrian border by 9am. It crossed into Austria that night and was spotted on the A4 at 5am or 6am on Thursday, police said.
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