Police have detained a driver near Hungary’s border with Serbia for allegedly trafficking people and causing a mass fatal accident on Monday, 13 December.
Reports say seven people died and four were injured, including the driver of the car.
The vehicle was reportedly trying to avoid police and speeded into a nearby shop at Morahalom in Hungary.
Police in the Hungarian town of Morahalom said they had arrested the Serbian driver, who was among four people hurt in the accident.
According to the news agencies Reuters and Associated Press, the car is thought to have been headed for the Hungarian town of Szeged, about 20 kilometres east of Morahalom, and also not far from the Serbian and Romanian borders.
Hungary is one of the main migrant transit routes into the EU from the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
The accident just before midnight on Monday was the latest crash involving people trying to cross into the EU illegally.
Last month, seven people were killed and eight injured in northern Greece when their vehicle crashed into a motorway toll station. Police said they had come from a border area close to Turkey and those injured included men from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal as well as a Moldovan driver suspected of smuggling them.
In October, Austrian police stopped a minibus that had crossed the border from Hungary carrying 30 people. Two bodies were found inside and the driver ran off.
The smuggling route into Central Europe is known to be fraught with risk for those making the journey.
Hungary has tightened asylum rules since the influx in 2015 and 2016. The EU’s top court ruled in November that the country had failed to fulfil its obligations under European Union law.
Winifred Lartey
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