A man watches a police car as the sun sets near the opera house in Munich, Germany, March 30, 2020. (PHOTO / AP)

BERLIN - At least seven people were killed and more than a dozen others injured when a suspected human smuggler lost control of a van carrying migrants in southern Germany, police said on Friday.

The accident occurred on the A94 motorway to the east of Munich after the Mercedes Vito van started driving at dangerously high speeds during a police pursuit, police added.

The van was carrying around 20 migrants, including children. Seven people died after the van overturned several times, while the remaining passengers sustained mild to severe injuries and were brought to nearby hospitals, police said.

Public prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation, the police added.

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The suspected human smuggler driving the van, which had Austrian license plates, survived the accident and received medical care.

We must dismantle the cruel business of smuggling gangs who make maximum profit from people's hardship and smuggle them across borders in such life-threatening ways.

Nancy Faeser, German Interior Minister 

A police spokesperson said the nationalities of the suspect and the migrants had not been ascertained, and that there would be further updates throughout the day.

Last month, German authorities imposed new border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic, saying these were necessary to tackle people smuggling and protect the European Union's fragile open border system.

Germany saw its first-time asylum requests rise by 78 percent in the first seven months of 2023, according to official data. In August, registered illegal border crossings to Germany reached 14,701, up 66 percent on the same month last year, police data show.

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Tensions surrounding the influx are running high in Germany, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the opposition conservatives and regional representatives convening for an emergency meeting on the issue later on Friday.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser expressed shock at the incident, adding it showed the need for the government to crack down on human smuggling.

"We must dismantle the cruel business of smuggling gangs who make maximum profit from people's hardship and smuggle them across borders in such life-threatening ways," she said in a statement.