Three migrants die as smuggler car crashes into Hungary river

By infoMigrants

Three migrants have reportedly been killed and eight injured when a car carrying 11 migrants drove off a bridge in southern Hungary. According to police, a people smuggler who drove the vehicle died as well.

At least four people were killed on Thursday, September 1 in an accident involving a heavily overloaded van carrying eleven migrants in the Hungary-Austria border region, news agency dpa reported.

The car plunged off a bridge into the Repce River a few kilometers from the Austrian border in the small northwestern Hungarian town of Kapuvar, the Hungarian 112 Emergency Press news agency reported.

According to the news agency, which reported from the scene of the crash, four passengers — three migrants and the driver — were killed and eight other migrants suffered injuries. The cause was initially unclear, but the vehicle was overloaded with a total of twelve occupants, police told 112 Emergency Press.

The weight may have caused the driver to lose control over the vehicle in a right turn just before the bridge, the news agency reported, adding that the barrier of the bridge over the Repce river was missing where the vehicle veered off the road.

The vehicle, which was pulled from the river on Thursday around noon, was carrying Syrian and Tunisian passengers and had a Bulgarian number plate, according to 112 Emergency Press. It also reported that the vehicle was damaged during a previous accident and no one in the car was wearing a seat belt.