Customs officers have found 31 people alive inside a refrigerated truck on Germany's border with the Czech Republic. Human smuggling in refrigerated cargo trucks has killed dozens of people in recent years.
German federal police and customs officials discovered dozens of people inside a refrigerated truck near Germany's border with the Czech Republic late Tuesday night.
Officers found 31 people inside the truck during a control operation, German public broadcaster MDR reported.
The passengers had been hiding behind pallets of fruits and vegetables. Authorities told MDR they recorded the personal information of the truck driver and people rescued from the back.
The truck was of Turkish origin.
Germany's Agency for Technical Relief, which provides logistical and humanitarian support to security authorities and NGOs, was also present at the scene.
In Austria in 2015, 71 bodies were found in the back of a sealed truck that had come from Hungary. In 2019, 39 Vietnamese people were discovered dead in a refrigerated lorry in Britain after having been smuggled into the country from Belgium.
SOURCE: Deutsche Welle
