Your trusted source

Austrian police on Thursday discovered the badly decomposing bodies of at least 20 — and possibly up to 50 — migrants stacked in a truck parked on the shoulder of the main highway from Budapest to Vienna, according to Chicagotribune.com.

The shocking find came as Austria hosted a summit in Vienna on Europe's refugee crisis for Western Balkan nations, which have been overwhelmed this year by the tens of thousands of migrants trying to get into Europe via their territory.

Police ordered reporters at the scene 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Vienna to move away from the vehicle, a white refrigeration truck with pictures of chicken on it.

The state of the bodies in the hot summer day made establishing the identities and even exact number of dead migrants difficult, but the total number could rise to 50, said Hans Peter Doskozil, chief of Burgenland police.

The truck was apparently abandoned Wednesday and its back door was left open, Doskozil said. It had Hungarian license plates but the writing on the side and back of was in Slovak. The state of the bodies suggested the migrants could have been dead for several days.

Police said investigations could last days. They declined to give further information on the victims' possible identities, whether children were among them, how the migrants may have died or other details.

Government officials and rights groups condemned the traffickers.