Enlarge image
Police control during an action against smugglers in Saxony (photo from October 31)
Photo: Danilo Dittrich / dpa
Almost 5,000 people entered Germany via the Belarus route in October - most of them by courier.
One week after the death of a refugee during a human smuggling, the search for the alleged people smuggler has been expanded.
According to the Federal Police in Pirna, the 42-year-old, who is an urgent suspect as a driver of a transporter due to smuggling resulting in death, is being searched throughout Germany.
A European arrest warrant was also issued.
The circumstances of death are so far unclear
Police and federal police officers had met several people who were just getting out of a vehicle on Friday last week after the information about a possible lock not far from Autobahn 4 Görlitz-Dresden.
There was a lifeless man in the van.
When and under what circumstances the found 32-year-old from Iraq died is unclear.
The alleged smuggler had fled.
According to the police, he is said to be the 42-year-old.
The driver of an escort vehicle, a 48-year-old man, has been arrested and remains in custody.
According to the information, a total of 22 women and men from Iraq were in the transporter.
In the meantime, the Federal Police took into custody a total of 107 people in the first days of November who had presumably come illegally from Belarus via Poland to Saxony.
They were handed over to the responsible state initial reception centers.
Two thirds of those affected came from Iraq, the others from Syria, Yemen and Turkey.
Since August, thousands of people, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, have been trying to cross the Polish border from Belarus.
The EU is assuming a retaliatory action by the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko for sanctions decisions taken in Brussels.
It is believed that the Belarusian authorities bring people into the country by plane and then smuggle them to the borders with the eastern EU states by bus.
muk / dpa