VIENNA — As many as 50 refugees were found dead in a parked lorry in eastern Austria near the Hungarian border on Thursday, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the discovery had shaken European leaders attending a Balkans summit. Police made the grisly discovery in the 7.5-ton lorry stopped on the A4 motorway near the town of Parndorf, apparently since Wednesday, Hans Peter Doskozil, police chief in the province of Burgenland, told a news conference. He said he could not put an exact figure on the number of victims, whose bodies had begun to decompose. “We can assume that it could be 20 people who died. It could also be 40, it could be 50 people,” he said. Merkel told a news conference at the summit on the West Balkans in Vienna: “We are of course all shaken by the appalling news. This reminds us that we must tackle quickly the issue of immigration and in a European spirit — that means in a spirit of solidarity — and to find solutions.” Those who make it ashore and others traveling by land have increasingly tried to make their way north via the Balkans, causing tension among countries along the route. — Reuters
