CRI听力:Three Syrian Migrant Children "Disappear" from Austrian Hospital

The children and their families vanished from the hospital in the town of Braunau am Inn, near Austria's border with Germany, sometime on Saturday.

Austrian authorities think the families may have taken the critically ill children and tried to cross the border into Germany rather than face deportation.

The three children - two girls and a boy aged between one and five years -- were hospitalized with severe dehydration.

Dr. Uwe Wintergerst, head of the Pediatric Department at St. Josef's Hospital says the children were in a stable condition when they disappeared.

"The children had traveled for 20 days. As a result of a lack of food and drinks, they were dehydrated and so we took them in, gave them liquids intravenously and at night they were stable enough to be able to make the decision to leave the hospital."

The kids were crammed in the back of a tiny Minivan along with other migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

They were found almost unconscious after Austrian police finally managed to stop the minivan after giving chase for almost an hour.

Austrian Police spokesperson David Further says the conditions inside the minivan were deplorable.

"So now you see here, this Spanish mini-van, and the driver was a Romanian, 29-years-old, he is now kept in jail, and you see the conditions inside, of this mini-van, so normally you don't even keep animals like this."

It's believed the asylum-seekers began their arduous journey in Hungary.

The minivan full of would-be migrants was discovered a day after Austrian police found 71 suspected migrants were found dead in an abandoned food truck that also originated in Hungary.

Hungarian police have arrested four Bulgarians and an Afghan man in connection with that discovery.

Hungary has turned into a hot-spot for people smugglers.

The Red Cross says the situation has worsened after Hungarian authorities began constructing a 175 km razor-wire barrier along its border with Serbia.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls is among a growing number of politicians in Europe who are criticizing the anti-immigration policies of Hungary and other countries in the Balkan region.

"Those fleeing war, persecution, torture, oppression must be welcomed. It is a universal principal of humanity. So, each asylum request must be examined quickly."

It is estimated a record 107-thousand-500 migrants crossed into the EU this past month alone.

The governments of Germany, France and the UK are demanding an emergency meeting of EU interior and justice ministers this week to "find concrete steps" to solve the issue.

For CRI I'm Poornima Weerasekara.