Death toll up to 71 in Austria refugee lorry disaster

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail CRI, August 29, 2015
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Residents of Vienna on Friday said they were shocked over the grisly discovery of a truck packed with 71 dead migrants parked on an Austrian highway.

An Austrian motorway patrol discovered the abandoned truck near the Hungarian border on Thursday.

The deceased migrants inside had been dead for up to two days and fluids from the decomposing bodies were said to be seeping from the vehicles doors.

Peter Neusser, a Vienna resident, has this reaction to the news:

"It is awful that the lorry was able to get to Austria. It's awful that it was able to happen altogether. And the Interior Minister is probably right in saying that the migrants should probably be registered properly in the country where they first arrive so that they can legally get to Austria. That would also be my proposal."

Austria's Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said on Friday the best way to handle the refugee crisis was to create legal pathways into Europe rather than stricter border controls.

The 28 member states of the European Union have not yet agreed on introducing binding quotas for the distribution of refugees.

The number of asylum requests in Austria has risen to 28-thousand in the first six months of 2015, already more than all the requests for 2014.

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