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The number of migrants found dead in a lorry abandoned on a highway in Austria has risen to 71, in a case that sparked a cross-border hunt for suspected people-smugglers responsible for the tragedy.
They were believed to be those of Syrian migrants and included a toddler and three young boys, Austrian police said today.
“Among these 71 people, there were 59 men, eight women and four children including a young girl one or two years old and three boys aged eight, nine or 10,” police spokesman Hans Peter Doskozil said. 
“There was also a Syrian travel document found so of course our first assumption is that these people were migrants, and likely a group of Syrian migrants. We can rule out that they were Africans,” he told a news conference.
Doskozil also said that three people were in custody in Hungary over the tragedy, believed to be the owner of the truck found on a motorway lay-by and  two others who were driving. 
One is a Bulgarian citizen of Lebanese origin believed to be the owner of  the vehicle. 
The others, a Bulgarian and another with Hungarian documents, are  ”pretty certain to be those who drove the vehicle”, Doskozil said.
Police found the decomposing bodies inside the refrigeration lorry parked on the safety lane of the main highway connecting Vienna and Budapest, Hungary. Police said the vehicle had “decomposing body fluids” dropping from it.
When they opened it, there was a powerful stench of human decay and the bodies lay piled on top of each other, crammed into a small rectangular space in a sea of tangled limbs.
Authorities worked all night to pull the bodies out. Autopsies will be conducted to determine how the migrants died.
Three people have been arrested in Hungary in relation to the case, Austrian newspaper Krone said on its website on Friday, without citing sources.
WATCH: Grim discovery in Austria sharpens urgency of migrant crisis in Europe

The count given Friday by Interior Ministry official Alexander Marakovits is significantly higher than the estimate of 20 to 50 that authorities gave on Thursday.
Officers at the scene were unable to determine whether there were any children among the dead.
The truck was towed to a refrigerated warehouse near the border with Hungary to allow police and experts to do a body count. The truck was brought to a customs building in the village of Nickelsdorf, which has refrigeration facilities and where forensic specialists in white protective suits and yellow rubber boots could be seen wheeling body bags away.
The refrigerated, 7.5-tonne lorry had Hungarian number plates and the markings of a Slovakian poultry firm. The driver was nowhere to be seen, and Austrian and Hungarian police have launched a joint investigation.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Austria for a summit with Balkan leaders on Europe’s migrant crisis on Thursday, said she was “shaken” by the “horrible” news.
“This is a warning to us to tackle this migrants issue quickly and in a European spirit, which means in a spirit of solidarity, and to find solutions,” Merkel said.

The grisly discovery of the lorry near the Slovakia and Hungary borders came as at least 30 more migrants drowned in the Mediterranean and European leaders again met to try to find ways to handle the tide of people seeking refuge in the European Union.
“Today is a dark day … This tragedy affects us all deeply,” Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told a press conference.
Mikl-Leitner vowed to crack down on the people who pocket exorbitant sums to arrange migrants’ passage to Europe, and then often leave them stranded en route. “Human traffickers are criminals,” she said.
READ MORE: Scores dead, hundreds rescued after packed migrant boat sinks off Libya's coast
The case brought home how dangerous the land journey for migrants through eastern and southeastern Europe is, after many have already survived a perilous sea crossing. So far this year, over 2,300 men, women and children have drowned in the Mediterranean after rickety boats operated by people-smugglers capsized.
Libya’s coastguard said Thursday evening at least 30 more people had died in the shipwreck of a boat carrying around 200 migrants bound for Europe.
Italy’s coastguard said it had coordinated the rescue of around 1,400 migrants Thursday, bringing to over 4,000 the numbers brought ashore in two days.

On Wednesday, at least 55 bodies were found on three overcrowded migrant boats, 52 of whom were found dead in the hold of an overcrowded vessel found drifting off Libya.
Another 2,500 people, mostly refugees fleeing wars in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, were headed north by bus through Serbia on Thursday to the border with Hungary, a bus station official in Belgrade said.
Hungary, an EU member state on the bloc’s southeast border, has received more than 100,000 arrivals this year.
European leaders have come under fire for failing to tackle the arrival of several hundred thousand migrants this year, many fleeing hotspots such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The countries of the western Balkans have become a major route for migrants and refugees trying reach the EU.
Reiterating his call for a reform of EU rules “to distribute refugees fairly”, Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank Steinmeier said Berlin would contribute 1 million euros (HK$9.6 million) to help.
But with large numbers of people from the western Balkans among the migrants, he also called on governments there to make clear to their citizens that their chances of obtaining asylum in Germany are “virtually non-existent”.


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71 migrants, including 4 children, found decomposing inside abandoned lorry in Austria

Investigators check the truck in which dozens of dead bodies were found at the side of the highway to Vienna near Parndorf, Austria. Photo: Xinhua

A coffin is rolled onto a truck at a customs building with refrigeration facilities in the village of Nickelsdorf, Austria. Photo: Reuters

The truck was towed to a refrigerated warehouse near the border with Hungary to allow police and experts to do a body count. Photo: Reuters

Dozens of migrants found dead in truck parked on Austrian highway

Forensic police officers inspect a parked truck in which up to 50 migrants were found dead on a motorway near Parndorf. Photo: Reuters

UN warns of migrant 'chaos' in Greece as thousands face 'shameful' conditions in crisis-hit country 