Berlin, Jul 15 (AP) German news agency dpa says police and customs officers discovered some 31 migrants hidden inside a refrigerated truck near the border with the Czech Republic.

The truck was stopped Tuesday night on the A 17 highway leading from the border to the eastern German city of Dresden. It had a Turkish number plate and was also carrying fruit.

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The migrants were all male and aged between 18 and 47 years, public broadcast station MDR reported. They came from Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. The driver of the truck was a 57-year-old Turkish citizen who was detained by police.

The migrants, who were taken to a federal police station, said they had to lie on top of boxes filled with melons during the drive, according to MDR.

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The search of the truck was part of a regular operation to crack down on cross-border crime, MDR reported.

Dozens of migrants inside trucks have died over the past few years while trying to enter the European Union. In 2015, 71 migrants died inside a truck in Austria and in 2019, 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead inside a truck in Britain. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)