EUROPE-MIGRANTS/MEMORIAL Vienna holds memorial for 71 refugees found dead in an abandoned lorry

Record ID: 140638

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/MEMORIAL Vienna holds memorial for 71 refugees found dead in an abandoned lorry
  • Date: 31st August 2015
  • Summary: MAN SINGING PEOPLE LISTENING, AUSTRIAN OFFICIALS SEATED IN FRONT ROW PEOPLE LISTENING TO PRAYERS
  • Embargoed: 15th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Austria
  • Country: Austria
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA11EF4GSMZ33O7QH7TKZFJ4K6X
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Memorial for 71 refugees who were found dead last week in an abandoned lorry on a highway in Austria was held at the Vienna's Cathedral on Monday (August 31).
    Austria's prime minister, foreign minister and minister of internal affairs, as well as several other government ministers attended the ceremony along with several hundred citizens who wanted to pay respect to the refugees who suffocated in a crammed lorry travelling from Hungary to Austria, fleeing from war and poverty.
    "I am shocked by the pictures of the refugees, in most cases they have nothing on them but their clothes. A mother with two kids could flee with at least two suitcases in 1945 and today and most of these refugees have nothing more than their lives. I can only imagine what it is like to flee from Syria to us with nothing, " Austria's Cardinal Christoph Schonborn said in his speech to a packed St. Stephen's Cathedral.
    "To look there means also to take clear action. Yesterday Pope Francis said we have to ask God to work together efficiently to prevent those criminal actions which are hurting the entire human family", Schonborn said.
    Seventy-one migrants were found dead in a truck on an Austrian highway and several people have been arrested in Hungary in connection with the tragedy last week.
    An Austrian motorway patrol discovered the abandoned truck near the Hungarian border on Thursday (August 27), probably at least 24 hours after it had been parked there.
    The refugees appeared to have been dead for up to two days and fluids from the decomposing bodies were seeping from its door.
    The deaths highlighted the dangers faced by migrants at the hands of traffickers on arrival in Europe, even if they survive perilous voyages across the Mediterranean, where more than 2,600 have drowned already this year.
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