USA TODAY International Edition
Germany, Austria, Hungary tighten border checks
Crackdown aimed at human traffickers after 71 migrants died in a truck last week.
Austria, Germany and Hungary tightened their border checks Monday in new operations aimed at cracking down on human traffickers after 71 people died in a food truck near Vienna last week.
The development comes as European authorities scrambled to find solutions to an unprecedented migration crisis claiming lives on land and sea.
Austria increased inspections of trucks at its border with Hungary, creating an 18.5- mile traffic jam on the main Budapest- Vienna highway, traffic firm Utinform said.
Austria and Hungary are part of the European Union’s Schengen zone of passport- free travel. Schengen- zone vehicles are rarely inspected at the border.
Germany introduced traffic checks on its highways near the border with Austria. In Budapest, Hungarian authorities stepped up inspections of trains bound for other destinations in central Europe.
Authorities in Vienna said the crackdown yielded some results.
“In the hours since we started implementing these measures that we agreed with Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, we have been able to get more than 200 refugees out of such vehicles, and we have been able to detain five smugglers,” Konrad Kogler, Austria’s director general for public security, said at a news conference Monday.
Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl- Leitner said the checks did not violate the Schengen- zone agreement because the checks were targeted at finding people smugglers and did not resemble “classic” border checks.
Five people suspected of human trafficking have been detained in connection with the deaths in the back of a food truck on a highway near Austria’s capital.
European leaders announced over the weekend they would hold a summit Sept. 14 in Brussels to try to devise a strategy for dealing with the crisis. Central European leaders may meet earlier than that, possibly at the end of this week.
Tens of thousands of people have fled Syria, Iraq, Serbia and other nations this year to pursue asylum in the EU. Many are fleeing war and persecution, while others are on the move amid severe economic hardship and few opportunities. Several thousand people have died on journeys.