BBC Online :
Austrian authorities have arrested five suspected people smugglers as part of an operation to check vehicles entering along the country’s eastern borders.
Over 200 migrants were recovered from vehicles overnight, Austria’s top policeman Konrad Kogler said.
The checks on larger vehicles with space to hide people were introduced on Sunday evening on the orders of Austria’s interior minister.
The change follows the discovery of 71 dead migrants in a truck on Thursday.
“We are seeing that the smuggler gangs are acting in ever more brutal and ruthless ways and we must counter them with stronger and harder measures,” said Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
Image caption These people were among the nine adults and two children in the car
As well as the bodies in the lorry found near Austria’s border with Hungary, hundreds more people drowned in the Mediterranean last week while trying to reach Europe from Libya.
A record number of 107,500 migrants reached the EU’s borders in July.
Separately, the EU’s migration commissioner and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls visited a refugee reception centre in the French port of Calais.
“Europe is preparing methodical and intelligent solutions, which take into account what is indispensable: reception for refugees and provision of humanitarian aid, and firmness against people traffickers – firmness also in regard to illegal immigration which we don’t want to confuse with the right to seek asylum – so that there is a proper solution for everyone,” Mr Valls told reporters.
Long traffic jams built up on Hungary’s major roads leading to the Austrian border, because of the extra Austrian police checks.
Queues of 30km (18 miles) were reported on the main M1 road from Budapest, as security officials searched vehicles over the border in Nickelsdorf. There were also jams further along the border at Klingenbach and Deutschkreutz.
Five people have been detained in connection with the deaths of 71 people, most of them thought to be Syrians, in a lorry found last week on the A4 at Parndorf.
“We will do controls for an undetermined length of time at all important border crossings in the eastern region, looking at all vehicles that have possible hiding places for trafficked people,” said Ms Mikl-Leitner.
The controls have been agreed with Austria’s neighbours Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, Austrian officials said.
The Austrian checks appear to undermine the EU’s Schengen system, which normally allows unrestricted travel. But in exceptional circumstances countries can reintroduce border controls under Schengen.
A spokesman for police in Austria’s easternmost state of Burgenland told the BBC that they had 54 officers on duty round the clock.
Helmut Marban said the checks are not border controls – which would be against Schengen laws – but a police action against people smuggling.
Austrian authorities have arrested five suspected people smugglers as part of an operation to check vehicles entering along the country’s eastern borders.
Over 200 migrants were recovered from vehicles overnight, Austria’s top policeman Konrad Kogler said.
The checks on larger vehicles with space to hide people were introduced on Sunday evening on the orders of Austria’s interior minister.
The change follows the discovery of 71 dead migrants in a truck on Thursday.
“We are seeing that the smuggler gangs are acting in ever more brutal and ruthless ways and we must counter them with stronger and harder measures,” said Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.
Image caption These people were among the nine adults and two children in the car
As well as the bodies in the lorry found near Austria’s border with Hungary, hundreds more people drowned in the Mediterranean last week while trying to reach Europe from Libya.
A record number of 107,500 migrants reached the EU’s borders in July.
Separately, the EU’s migration commissioner and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls visited a refugee reception centre in the French port of Calais.
“Europe is preparing methodical and intelligent solutions, which take into account what is indispensable: reception for refugees and provision of humanitarian aid, and firmness against people traffickers – firmness also in regard to illegal immigration which we don’t want to confuse with the right to seek asylum – so that there is a proper solution for everyone,” Mr Valls told reporters.
Long traffic jams built up on Hungary’s major roads leading to the Austrian border, because of the extra Austrian police checks.
Queues of 30km (18 miles) were reported on the main M1 road from Budapest, as security officials searched vehicles over the border in Nickelsdorf. There were also jams further along the border at Klingenbach and Deutschkreutz.
Five people have been detained in connection with the deaths of 71 people, most of them thought to be Syrians, in a lorry found last week on the A4 at Parndorf.
“We will do controls for an undetermined length of time at all important border crossings in the eastern region, looking at all vehicles that have possible hiding places for trafficked people,” said Ms Mikl-Leitner.
The controls have been agreed with Austria’s neighbours Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, Austrian officials said.
The Austrian checks appear to undermine the EU’s Schengen system, which normally allows unrestricted travel. But in exceptional circumstances countries can reintroduce border controls under Schengen.
A spokesman for police in Austria’s easternmost state of Burgenland told the BBC that they had 54 officers on duty round the clock.
Helmut Marban said the checks are not border controls – which would be against Schengen laws – but a police action against people smuggling.
