The migrants found dead in Austria aboard a midsize truck once used to transport chickens had been crammed so tightly inside its hold that, at first, authorities didn’t think it could possibly contain more than 50 corpses.
But when police extracted their bodies on Friday they found 71, including those of four children, and uncovered fresh details of the desperate journey of those aboard. Hundreds of miles to the south, rescue workers were recovering dozens of bodies from two shipwrecks off the Libyan coast—tragedies shedding light on the brutal tactics of the people-smuggling operations that stretch from across the Mediterranean to deep within Europe’s borders.
Many of the corpses found in the truck in Austria were so decomposed that officials say they likely had died up to two days earlier, before they ever crossed into Western Europe. The truck’s cargo hold had no openings for ventilation on its sides, suggesting they suffocated, police said. Austrian authorities said an expert would examine the truck, including whether damage on its side pointed to a desperate struggle to get out.