Hungarian motorway police stopped a Chrysler minivan with 15 Afghan migrants hidden on board in the early hours of Thursday morning, Hungary’s national police announced on its website.
Police said the van was stopped near Győr in western Hungary and all 15 people hidden in the vehicle declared themselves to be Afghani. None of the migrants had any documents to confirm who they were or where they came from.
The vehicle, which was traveling towards Austria, was impounded and all 15 migrants were returned to Romania.
In addition to the Romanian driver of the van, police also arrested the driver of an Austrian-registered Mercedes, who they said acted as a scout and was driving ahead of the Chrysler.
Both the Romanian driver of the van and the scout were charged with people smuggling.
Just one day earlier, Hungarian and Romanian border police discovered 33 illegal immigrants attempting to enter the country hidden in a truck arriving from Romania, with 25 migrants declaring themselves to be from Syria, another five saying they were Iraqi, and two who claimed they were Palestinian.
Since then, as part of its state of emergency measures declared on Wednesday, Hungary has reinstated border controls on the inner Schengen borders with fellow EU member states Austria and Slovenia, in order to enforce an entry ban on people arriving from Italy, China, South Korea, and Iran.
Title image: Chrysler van with 15 Afghan migrants on board detained on the M1 motorway. (source: police.hu)
