Vienna: As regional leaders met on Thursday to tackle Europe’s refugee crisis, a gruesome discovery unfolded a short drive from the Austrian capital. An abandoned truck was found with at least 20 — and possibly up to 50 — decomposing bodies of migrants piled inside.
It was the latest tragedy in a year that has seen tens of thousands of people risking all to seek a better life or refuge in wealthy European countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the Vienna conference she was “shaken by the awful news,” and summit participants held a minute of silence.
“This reminds us that we in Europe need to tackle the problem quickly and find solutions in the spirit of solidarity,” Merkel said.
Hassan El Ali, from the Syrian city of Aleppo, said smugglers can easily be contacted “face to face, but also through Facebook and Twitter.” The 31-year-old who was camped on Serbia’s border with Hungary said migrants used word of mouth to find “hidden pages and forums about how to cross the border between Hungary and Serbia.”
Hungary on Thursday deployed more police on its porous border, but refugee activists said the effort appeared futile in a nation whose migrant camps are overloaded and barely delay their journeys into the heart of the EU.
Police reported a single-day record of 3,241 detentions Wednesday, 700 more than the previous day, as they launched a new initiative to channel migrants to one of the country’s five camps using special trains. Under police escort, about 600 asylum- seekers boarded a train to be delivered directly to at least two migrant camps.
Others continued to cross Hungary’s 109-mile (174-kilometer) border with Serbia on foot.
At the Vienna summit, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann had just finished telling other European leaders that there was an urgent need to crack down on human traffickers when news came of the grisly discovery on the highway.
Participants fell silent for a minute in tribute, and Faymann invoked the tragedy as showing the need for quick solutions to deal with the torrent of migrants.
“Today, refugees lost the lives they had tried to save by escaping, but lost them in the hand of traffickers,” Faymann said.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz floated elements of a five-point plan that foresees setting up safe havens in the migrants’ home countries where those seeking asylum in the EU could be processed and — if they qualify — be given safe passage to Europe.
Beyond safe havens, possibly protected by troops acting under a U.N. mandate, the Austrian plan to be submitted to EU decision-makers foresees increased controls on Europe’s outer borders and coordinated action against human smuggling. It also calls for refugee quotas for each of the EU’s 28 members — something that many countries have opposed.
“Never before in history have so many people fled their homes to escape war, violence and persecution,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “And given the large number of unresolved conflicts in our neighborhood, the stream of refugees seeking protection in Europe will not abate in the foreseeable future.”
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.”
On Wednesday, the bodies of 51 migrants were found in the hull of a wooden boat off Libya by a Swedish rescue crew. The Swedish ship Poseidon was already rescuing 130 migrants from a raft when it got a call to assist the nearby wooden boat. The Swedes rescued 439 survivors from the boat and then found the bodies below deck.
source:firstpost.com
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 