Hungarian police on Friday closed investigation into the death of 71 refugees in a smugglers’ lorry and suggested that prosecutors charge the nine people involved.
The nine suspects are accused of being members of a criminal enterprise, with their illegal transport resulting in the deaths of the refugees in a refrigerator lorry in August 2015.
The police said that all nine men, eight Afghans and a Bulgarian, are in custody in Hungary.
The bodies were found in a vehicle abandoned on an Austrian highway at Parndorf, not far from Vienna, at the peak of the migration crisis on the so-called Balkan route.
The smugglers had packed the refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan into the lorry, where they suffocated.
In less than 12 months of 2015 and 2016, over one million people travelled the Balkan route, from Greece, through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary, or Croatia and Slovenia, to Austria, their gateway to wealthier parts of Europe.
Hungary was the first country on the route to seal its border to refugees and migrants, already in the fall of 2015.
The route was officially closed 13 months ago, slowing the inflow of refugees and migrants to a trickle. (dpa/NAN)