DHAKA: Up to 50 refugees have reportedly been found dead in a truck in Austria, as German chancellor Angela Merkel and Balkan leaders gathered in Vienna to decide on how to tackle together the biggest migration crisis to hit Europe since World War II.

The Krone newspaper reported on Thursday that those on the truck may have suffocated.

An interior ministry spokesman confirmed that a tractor trailer had been found on a motorway by the town of Parndorf.

‘Unfortunately there are many dead people in there,’ he added, but said he did not have an exact number of the people involved, who he described as refugees, the media reported, says Al Jazeera.

According to the report, it was not yet clear how many people had died or where the truck was found, but authorities were expected to hold a press conference.

The talks in Vienna on Thursday come a day after Merkel vowed zero tolerance for ‘vile’ anti-migrant violence in Germany, and amid growing criticism of the European Union’s failure to agree a joint response.

Countries taking part include Macedonia and Serbia, two major transit nations for the thousands of migrants and refugees trying to enter the EU by taking the so-called ‘western Balkans route’.

The foreign ministers of both countries called for a concerted EU action plan at the start of the summit.

‘Unless we have a European answer to this crisis... no one should be under any illusion that this will be solved,’ Macedonia’s Nikola Poposki said.

BDST: 1827 HRS, AUG 27, 2015
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