BRAUNAU, Austria, Aug. 30 (UPI) — Three critically-ill Syrian children and their families rescued from a minivan containing 26 migrants have disappeared from the hospital in Austria where they received treatment.
The children, who were being treated for severe dehydration, disappeared from the hospital sometime Saturday, according to BBC News. The children were among 26 migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Bangladesh rescued from a minivan that was pulled over after a police chase on Friday.
The children — two girls and a boy aged between one and five years — were nearly unconscious when found in Braunau, near Austria’s border with Germany. The driver of the minivan, a 29-year-old Romanian, was arrested.
The children and families may have been smuggled into Germany as to avoid deportation. More than 107,000 migrants crossed into the European Union last month.
The discovery of the 26 migrants in the minivan was made a day after the decomposing bodies of 71 apparent migrants were found in an abandoned food truck in Austria.
Germany, France and the United Kingdom have called for urgent discussions between European Union interior and justice ministers over the migrant crisis.
