(Berlin) A 32-year-old Iraqi migrant was found lifeless in the van of a smuggler on Friday carrying around 30 other exiles to eastern Germany, presumably coming from Belarus via Poland, said local police.
“The death probably occurred several hours” before the control of the truck, intervened in the early morning near a motorway in Schöpstal in Saxony (east), said the police. An autopsy is underway to determine its cause.
Turkish driver on the run
The driver of the vehicle, a 42-year-old Turk, is on the run, said police, who arrested the group less than 10 kilometers from the German-Polish border, following the route of a new migratory route that has emerged in recent months. .
The driver of a second van, 48, on suspicion of assisting the smuggler was arrested.
Berlin has this week tightened border controls in the face of the arrival of a growing number of migrants from Belarus in recent weeks.
In October alone, German police recorded 4,890 “illegal entries” into Germany in connection with people who had arrived from Belarus via Poland. Since the start of the year, that figure has been around 7,300 people.
A slowdown in these entries is “currently not in sight,” a police spokesperson admitted on Friday.
Ten times more illegal entries
The number of arrivals has thus been “multiplied by ten” in one year at the main reception center located near the German-Polish border in Eisenhüttenstadt, Olaf Jansen, head of the office, told AFP this week. central for foreigners in this city.
The German far right, particularly active in this part of the former East Germany, recently tried to interfere in these events. Last week, the German police had to intervene at the border with Poland to disperse a militia which intended to patrol itself in order to turn back foreigners seeking to enter the national territory.
On Friday, an administrative court in Saxony banned a demonstration planned by a local far-right party near the A4 motorway where the van was intercepted, near Schöpstal.
He explained his ban by “the danger to public safety” that the closure of the adjacent highway would represent.
The European Union suspects Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of having provoked this migratory movement in response to the economic sanctions it has taken against human rights violations in his country.
“The responsibility for resolving this crisis clearly lies with Minsk,” the German government repeated Friday during a regular press conference.
Many migrants do not stay in the Baltic States or in Poland and end their journey in Germany.