Edited by FOTHER-MUCKER at 28-8-2015 09:20 PM
Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban' spokesman Janos Lazar said: 'Austrian and Hungarian police will work closely together to take the necessary steps to investigate what happened and apprehend those responsible. 'It appears that the victims were illegal migrants in a human trafficking operation.' Hungarian officials confirmed the truck was registered to a Romanian national living in the central Hungarian city of Kecskemet. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann called for joint action across Europe following today's tragedy. He said: 'Today refugees lost the lives they had tried to save by escaping, but lost them in the hand of traffickers.' Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said a memorial Mass would be held Monday evening for the victims at Vienna's historic St. Stephen's Cathedral. All Catholic churches in the city planned to ring their bells during the service. At the Vienna migration summit on Thursday, participants held a moment of silence and condemned the traffickers. Human smugglers are criminals," said Austrian Foreign Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. "Those who still think that they are gentle helpers of refugees are beyond saving."
EU leaders express condolences for 50 found dead in truck
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Forensic experts tried to lift fingerprints from the driver's door of the truck's cab in order to identify the gang
Austrian police have begun the task of identifying the victims and to locate the criminal gang responsible
Passers by who saw the truck described 'the smell of death' coming from the side of the road
European Commissioner with responsibility for EU enlargement said: 'It will certainly be a central task to protect our outer borders better.' He said Brussels would now look at new proposals to combat the problem. He said: 'We will have another go at quotas. I hope that in the light of the most recent developments now there is a readiness among all the 28 (member states) to agree on this.' Ahead of the conference, Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz warned that his country would consider introducing tougher anti-migration measures including 'much tighter border controls', if the EU failed to come up with a unified response. He told public broadcaster ORF before today's tragedy was uncovered: "'Austria has more migrants than Italy and Greece combined... so we shouldn't pretend that only Italy and Greece are affected.' In Austria, the number of asylum requests rose above 28,300 between January and June alone - as many as for the whole of 2014 - and officials expect the total to reach 80,000 this year. Migrants fleeing war and poverty from the Middle East, Africa and Asia are flocking to Europe by the hundreds of thousands this year.
ONce the truck is removed to a secure location, it will undergo a very detailed forensic examination
The truck, pictured, was abandoned on the side of the A4 on the road to the capital Vienna near Parndorf
A major operation has been launched to hunt down the people smuggling gang responsible for the deaths
Police said the truck was registered to a Romanian national with an address in Kecskemet, central Hungary
After the grisly find of up to 50 bodies in an abandoned truck, a small demonstration was held outside the police station in Eisenstadt, Austria, with a banner reading "Refugees welcome"
Many follow the Balkans route, from Turkey to Greece by sea, up north to Macedonia by bus or foot, by train through Serbia and then walking the last few miles into EU member Hungary. That avoids the more dangerous Mediterranean Sea route from North Africa to Italy, where the bodies of 51 other migrants were found Wednesday in the hull of a smugglers' boat rescued off Libya's northern coast. Once inside the 28-nation EU, most migrants seek to reach richer nations such as Germany, The Netherlands, Austria or Sweden. Hungarian police said they detained 3,241 migrants on Wednesday, over 700 more than a day earlier and the highest number so far this year. The Hungarian government is quickly finishing a razor-wire border fence to keep the migrants from crossing in from Serbia. Amnesty International alleged that EU indecisiveness was partly to blame for the latest migrant tragedy. "People dying in their dozens - whether crammed into a truck or a ship - en route to seek safety or better lives is a tragic indictment of Europe's failures to provide alternative routes," the rights group said a statement. "Europe has to step up and provide protection to more, share responsibility better and show solidarity to other countries and to those most in need."
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