One dead, eight injured as car carrying migrants crashes in Hungary

One dead, eight injured as car carrying migrants crashes in Hungary

Crime

One dead, eight injured as car carrying migrants crashes in Hungary

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BUDAPEST (Reuters) - One person died and eight people including four children were injured in Hungary near the Serbian border on Friday when a car carrying migrants crashed with a truck, authorities said.

Renata Papp, mayor of Asotthalom village where the accident occurred, said on Facebook the car driver, a smuggler, was lifted from the wreckage by another smuggler and whisked away in another car.

An ambulance spokesman Jozsef Hanga said three children suffered life-threatening injuries.

Police figures have shown a jump in illegal migrant crossings on Hungary's southern border with Serbia in the past months, arriving on the so-called Balkans route. With the help of smugglers, they head for Slovakia or Austria.

The migrants, predominantly from the Middle East and Afghanistan, enter Hungary from Serbia despite a steel fence that Prime Minister Viktor Orban had built after the 2015 migration crisis that rocked Europe.