Officials in Austria have said on Friday that 71 bodies were found in the back of a truck near the Hungarian border on Thursday, three people have been arrested. Initial reports had put the death toll at 20.
In an update to media, police said 59 men, eight women and four children were found in the truck, which was abandoned by its driver on the side of a motorway.
The children were aged between three and 10, according to local reports that also said Syrian travel documents were found.
Some saying those who suffocated in truck in Austria 'trafficked.' That wld mean transported for prostitution etc. 'Smuggled' more likely.— Lindsey Hilsum (@lindseyhilsum) August 28, 2015
Officials found the truck shortly before noon local time Thursday on the highway shoulder about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Vienna, near the town of Parndorf, and they originally believed it had mechanical trouble, said police spokesman Helmut Marban.
Then they saw blood dripping from the cargo area and noticed the smell of dead bodies, he said. Police quickly realized there were no survivors.
Information from Hungarian police indicated the truck was east of Budapest early Wednesday and entered Austria overnight before being abandoned, Marban told reporters in Eisenstadt, the provincial capital.
The condition of the bodies indicated the victims may have died before the truck entered Austria, he added.
The truck apparently used to belong to the Slovak company Hyza, which sells chicken meat and is part of Agrofert Holding, owned by Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis. Agrofert Holding, in a statement, said it had sold the truck in 2014. The new owners did not remove Hyza's logos, and the company said it had nothing to do with the truck now.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press