71 migrants in Austria lorry 'suffocated in no time at all': police

The 71 migrants found dead in an abandoned lorry in Austria last week had most likely suffocated soon after they were picked up by a smuggler in Hungary, police said Friday.

Preliminary autospy results indicate that "if you take into account the number of people and lack of oxygen, it's fair to assume that asphyxiation occurred within no time at all," police spokesman Hans Peter Doskozil said.

The final coroner's report was expected to take another five or six weeks, he added.

The victims were believed to have been from the war-torn countries of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, Doskozil said. 

The 59 men, eight women and four children were discovered piled on top of each other in the back of a refrigerated poultry truck in a motorway layby near the Hungarian border on 27 August.