Three migrants are killed and others injured when people-smuggling van crashes while trying to dodge the police after crossing from Hungary to Austria

• An alleged people smuggler floored the accelerator after check at the border
• The van with 20 people inside, including four children, overturned into a ditch
• Three people are dead and seven are seriously injured and taken to hospital
• The smuggler, thought to be Russian, was arrested after the A6 crash at Kittsee

Three migrants have today been killed and several have been seriously injured in Austria after a crammed people-smuggling van crashed crossing from Hungary.

As the van was being checked at the crossing, the smuggler floored the accelerator trying to dodge the police and flee to Austria but the vehicle overturned.

The van careered into a roadside ditch on the A6 Autobahn (motorway) at the Kittsee border crossing in Burgenland state, near Austria’s eastern border with Hungary at around 9.30am (8.30am UK time).

Emergency services at the scene this morning where at least three people were killed and several seriously injured after an accident on the A6 near the Kittsee border crossing, Austria 

Two men and a woman died with several others seriously injured and the alleged smuggler has been arrested

After being checked at the crossing, the smuggler floored the accelerator trying to dodge the police and flee to Austria but overturned the vehicle

The van had more than 20 people inside, including four children, when it crashed as the driver tried to escape police on the Austrian side of the border

The van had more than 20 people inside, including four children, when it crashed as the driver tried to escape police on the Austrian side of the border.

Two men and a woman died as a result of the crash, with seven others seriously injured, , according to Austrian national broadcaster ORF.

The alleged smuggler, believed to be of Russian origin by police, has been arrested and is and is being questioned by police. 

A police spokesman said the injured people were taken to nearby hospitals, some by air ambulance.

Austrian police said that five air ambulances, 15 ambulances, 13 fire engines as well as a large police operation attended the scene.

The border crossing was closed for several hours for those entering Austria. 

Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the deaths showed the brutality of the smuggling mafia.

He said people risk their lives after being lured to Austria with false promises and said action needed to be taken against the trafficking mafia.

The Ministry of the Interior announced in May that police had smashed a group believed to have smuggled tens of thousands of people, mostly Syrians, from Hungary to Austria.

Two of those illegally transported across the border were found suffocated in a van last year.

This recalled a grim incident in 2015 when 71 people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan suffocated in the back of an air-tight van where they had been hidden by people smugglers.

The bodies, including those of three children and a baby, were discovered in Austria but they had died while still on the other side of the border with Hungary.

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