At least eight migrants who were being trafficked were found hidden in life-threatening conditions inside a narrow wooden pallet box that was attached to the underside of a truck, Austrian police said on Wednesday.
Originally from Turkey, the migrants were being taken to Austria from Romania via Hungary, officials said.
Trapped in the box in freezing temperatures, some of the migrants suffered from hypothermia while being transported, while some others who were exposed to the truck’s exhaust fumes for hours fainted, police said in a statement.
The migrants have called the hiding place a “horror box”, officials said.
Police officials and investigators are believed to have stopped the truck and found the migrants stuffed in the pallet box around last month but the information was confirmed by them on Wednesday.
Authorities also arrested the 39-year-old truck driver, a Turkish man and his 56-year-old alleged accomplice at a highway stop southeast of Vienna in Schewat.
Confessing to the charges of trafficking, the driver has told the authorities that he has smuggled up to 40 migrants to Austria over the course of eight trips.
For each trip, the person had to pay between 15,000 to 16,000 euros (£12,642-13,485), the driver told Austrian officials.
The accomplice, also Turkish, was arrested in Austria’s Graz city where he lives.
However, further details of the migrants and traffickers are not immediately clear and have not been released by the Austrian police force.
The lead for hunting down the truck carrying the migrants was provided by the German authorities.
The Austrian interior minister said that the incident should bolster authorities to seal the EU’s external borders to stop these acts from being repeated.
“This case shows once again how inhumane organised trafficking criminals act. We must ensure that a robust protection of the EU’s external borders deprives these criminals of their business basis,” said Gerhard Karner.
