KISKUNMAJSA, Hungary (AP) — Two people were killed and six were injured in a car accident in Hungary early on Thursday after a vehicle suspected of transporting migrants entering the country illegally hit a tree and overturned.
The accident occurred around 3 a.m. near Kiskunmajsa, in southern Hungary near the border with Serbia. Police said the driver of the vehicle, a Renault with French license plates, sped away after police attempted to perform a traffic stop and lost control in a bend in the road.
As it evaded police, the car swerved and hit a tree and then overturned, police said. Jozsef Hangai, a spokesperson for the Hungarian National Ambulance Service, said that two of those in the vehicle died at the scene, while six other injured people were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
Police said initial information suggested the vehicle was driven by a human smuggler who was transporting the migrants.
Hungary has taken a hard stand against illegal immigration, and in 2015 erected a 320-kilometer (200-mile) border fence along its frontiers with Serbia and Croatia to fend off hundreds of thousands of migrants attempting to enter the European Union along the so-called Balkan route.
Still, Hungary’s neighbor to the north, Slovakia, began conducting traffic checks at its border last week amid what it says is a dramatic rise in migrants crossing onto its territory from Hungary. Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland also reintroduced controls at their own borders with Slovakia last week to curb migrants coming in from the country.