From Austria comes the report of a scene all too familiar on the southern border of the United States, cranked up to a degree that would raise the eyebrows of even the most seasoned U.S. Border Patrol veterans. 86 Middle Eastern “migrants” were stuffed into a locked, windowless truck, blasting through 95-degree heat without ventilation for over twelve hours.
The illicit passengers included a pregnant woman, who passed out from the heat, plus 16 children, the youngest only five months old.
NBC News reports that Austrian police stopped the truck near St. Poelten, west of Vienna, on Saturday when they saw it was overloaded. They discovered the roof of the truck riddled with breathing holes the passengers had ripped with their bare hands. In addition to the unconscious pregnant women, officers found themselves dealing with several men who collapsed after emerging from the vehicle. The Red Cross is now providing assistance to the migrants.
The truck driver fled during the confusion and reportedly remains at large. The truck is said to have Hungarian registration.
Only a few hours later, police found 38 more migrants hiding in another truck. “Nearly every day, we stop these trafficking transports,” said police spokesman Johann Baumschlager. “It is a miracle that no one has died yet.”
The UK Daily Mail further quotes Baumschlager calling it “the worst case of trafficking” his department had ever seen. “Even experienced officers were shocked,” he said.
It appears that most of these migrants are passing through Austria en route to Germany and Scandinavian countries. AFP News notes that only two of the people recovered from the overcrowded truck in St. Poelten asked for asylum in Austria.
NBC reports the migrants hailed from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. “It is the latest example of migrants risking their lives to enter Europe from central Asia and Africa. Record numbers have crossed land and sea borders already this year, leading to hundreds of deaths, according to rights groups,” the report notes delicately, without delving into the reasons why.
There is much talk about the looming disaster with Iran, but until the first Iranian nuclear bomb goes off, the most terrible legacy of Barack Obama’s foreign policy is the tidal wave of Middle Eastern refugees sweeping across Europe. Obama’s policies, and Hillary Clinton’s disastrous war in Libya—never forget that was more her idea than the president’s—left the region in ruins, and people are fleeing those ruins as quickly as they can.
They are hitting Italy and Greece hard as they come across the Mediterranean, with many refugees drowning during the attempt. They are creating both a humanitarian crisis and a political powder keg on the French side of the Eurotunnel.
The UK Telegraph reports that Italy and Greece have been overwhelmed “by the human waves, with migrants saying they are “frequently encouraged to move on.”
“Other countries, such as Germany, are known to be more welcoming, leading asylum-seekers to try their luck around Europe,” the Telegraph continued.
This migration is massive, and very likely a movement in one direction only—it’s a permanent shift in populations, with accompanying legal, economic, and social pressures, conducted without the slightest thought of obtaining permission from the citizens of the receiving nations.