Migrant crisis: Balkans summit overshadowed by latest tragedies

Europe

Migrant crisis: Balkans summit overshadowed by latest tragedies

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann had just finished telling other European leaders that there was an urgent need to crack down on human traffickers when the news came: As many as 50 migrants had been found dead in a truck just miles away. Faymann told those attending the Western Balkans Summit in Vienna on Thursday that the tragedy was a perfect example of the need for quick solutions to deal with the torrent of migrants pouring into Europe. Later another migrant ship sank off the coast of Libya, killing at least 10 and deepening a crisis that is overwhelming the continent and throwing up new tragedies by the day.

Austrian police said the truck with the badly decomposing bodies was apparently abandoned Wednesday 25 miles southeast of Vienna on the main highway to Budapest with its back door left open. Faced with a sea of tangled limbs, officers at the scene were unable to determine the exact number of dead, assess people’s gender, or determine whether there were any children among them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also attended the Western Balkans conference, said she was “shaken by the awful news." The conference was called to find a common European answer to the migrant influx that is overwhelming some countries while leaving others relatively unaffected.