Before a police check, a smuggler tried to flee near Kittsee in Burgenland on Saturday. The van overturned. 17 people, including four minors and 13 men, were injured. Two men and one woman died at the scene of the accident. The three dead refugees were autopsied, a result should be available today.
The identity of the refugees who had no identification papers with them could then be clarified. The suspected smuggler, a thirty-year-old Russian, was arrested. He is still in custody at Eisenstadt Prison. The man, who has a French residence permit, is being investigated for smuggling in a criminal organization and multiple negligent homicides and bodily harm under particularly dangerous circumstances. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (VP) said yesterday that the accident had shown how brutal and merciless the “smuggler mafia” was. It is therefore important that action is taken consistently, both at the Austrian border together with colleagues in Hungary and at European level.
“Tell Counterstory”
People who put themselves in the hands of people smugglers would suffer: “Because they pay a lot of money and because their lives are threatened,” said the interior minister. The smugglers would “trick” the people into believing that politicians had to “tell the counter-story to the mafia” even before the refugees embarked on the risky journey. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the social media campaign warning of the dangers of illegal migration should therefore be extended to other countries of origin and continuously adapted.
Source: Nachrichten
