Hungarian police find 17 migrants crammed in airless truck

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian police found 17 migrants crammed into a closed space with no proper ventilation when they stopped a truck with Turkish license plates near the southern border.

The migrants – 16 from Egypt and one from Libya – needed immediate medical care, police said on their website, adding that only quick action following a tip-off from Romanian authorities had saved their lives.

Police said they stopped the truck on Thursday near the village of Kistelek and called ambulances for the migrants and detained the human smuggler, a Turkish national.

In February, 18 Afghan migrants were found dead in a truck abandoned on a back road near the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

Thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia make the overland journey across the Balkans into Europe. Hungary had built a fence on its southern border with Serbia but the route via Hungary to western Europe remains a popular one for migrants.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Robert Birsel)