Up to 50 refugees found dead in truck in Austria: Krone newspaper

[August 27, 2015]  VIENNA (Reuters) - As many as 50 refugees were found dead in a parked truck in eastern Austria on Thursday, the Krone newspaper reported, saying initial indications were that they 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.

Tens of thousands of refugees from crisis areas in the Middle East and Africa have been trying to make their way to Europe.

(Reporting by Michael Shields and Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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