At a press conference on Friday morning in the eastern Austrian city of Eisenstadt, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said 71 people had died in the vehicle. Among the victims were "59 men, eight women and four children including a young girl one or two years old," police spokesman Hans Peter Doskozil said. Syrian travel documents were also found in the truck, suggesting that the group were "likely" Syrians. Doskozil said the case has been treated as a homicide. "As to the cause of death, we cannot give any concrete information. No fresh air could get into the load area. Whether any measures were made to allow air into the truck remains unknown," Doskozil told reporters. "It is likely that they suffocated," he added. Abandoned on the Autobahn The vehicle found on Austria's A4 Autobahn on Thursday had the markings of a Slovakian poultry company but Hungarian license plates. Officers approached the truck after they noticed it had parked up for a long period and thought it had broken down. As they approached the vehicle, officers noticed "blood dripping" from the vehicle as well as "the smell of dead bodies." The van driver was nowhere to be seen. Police said in a press conference on Thursday that the migrants, who were traveling in the truck, may have died before they entered Austria on Wednesday evening. Ministry confirms arrests Seven people were arrested following Thursday's discovery, four of whom have been "partially released." The current holder of the vehicle, a Bulgarian of Lebanese descent, was among the trio still in custody. Authorities believe the other two suspects, also thought to be Bulgarian, drove the vehicle at some point during its journey from Hungary to Austria. Asked what Austria intends to do to in light of the tragedy, Mikl-Leitner said she "did not support internal border controls." "What we need to do is secure external borders. Then we can of course provide protection to refugees and also take the route away from traffickers," she said, adding that Europe needed to act as quickly as possible "to save human lives."
