Story highlights Police who opened the back of an abandoned truck found dead migrants, Austria's government says

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(CNN) The discovery of dead migrants in the back of a truck in Austria, just a day after the Italian coast guard said 54 people lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean, has highlighted once again the scale of the migration crisis gripping Europe.

An Austrian Interior Ministry statement said it appeared that the "many bodies" found in the truck, whose number has not yet been confirmed, are refugees.

The truck was abandoned on the side of the A4 highway, which links Budapest in Hungary to the Austrian capital, Vienna, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told CNN on Thursday.

When police opened the back of it, they found the bodies, Alexander Marakovits said. He added that he wasn't able to say how many bodies were found and that police are seeking the driver.

"These people seem to have died a while ago. It is not clear what the cause of death was, the investigation is ongoing," said the director of state police, Peter Doskozil.

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