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The bodies of a mother aged 34 and her young daughter, 10 have been discovered inside freezers in an flat in western Austria.

The deceased, a woman from Syria and her child, who had been unaccounted for for several months, were found on the end of last week. The freezers were concealed behind a plasterboard wall in the apartment, located in the Innsbruck area.

Two men, a Austrian man, 55 and his brother aged 53, were detained in the month of June. The 55-year-old, a work associate of the Syrian woman, told authorities last week that there had been an incident—but rejected murder.

Informing journalists earlier, a spokesman for the state prosecutor stated the brothers were being held on "strong suspicion of murder".

The names of those implicated have not been released by police, in compliance with Austrian law.

Their going missing was first reported by the cousin of the mother, who resides in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.

Police revealed the male associate informed them at the time she had gone on an extended trip with her child to travel to her relatives in the nation of Turkey.

The victim's bank card was then found to have been used in foreign locations several times.

Yet when officers entered the woman's home, her mobile phone was discovered.

Someone also reported hearing a disturbing sound in the apartment, and shouts of "mother" on the occasion the mother and child were believed to have vanished.

A wider official inquiry was launched, with investigators discovering several texts transmitted via the mother's device—such as a job termination message to her workplace and messages to the male associate.

Law enforcement said a significant cash transfer was also transferred to the man.

A senior police official told reporters on Tuesday that a storage facility had been rented out before the vanishing and a cooling unit had been installed within.

The male siblings extracted the freezer from the unit on the day the mother and daughter vanished, she revealed. And a shortly afterward, they purchased another freezer.

Authorities believe they consider this suggests the demise were intentionally orchestrated.

"The reason for their demise could not be determined due to the state of decomposition of the victims," Tersch said.

Mayr—of the public prosecutor's office—said the specific order of occurrences is yet to be determined, but the remains were professionally hidden and were not found during a previous house search.

While the men were detained in June, it was not until 12 November that the suspect acknowledged an occurrence and to storing the victims. He disputes any plan to cause death, officials confirmed.

In a related development, his 53-year-old sibling confessed to a attempt to hide evidence but denied knowledge of a killing.

The brothers are at this time in custody awaiting trial in detention centers in separate locations, around 117 miles (189km) apart.

Via a shared communication, Austria's Minister for Women and Justice Minister said the "reported homicide of mother and child... constitutes the swift and cruel conclusion of two individuals and reveals a heartless setup".

"Females of all ages are falling victim to homicide due to the sole reason that they are of the female gender," they went on to say.

"Femicides are a strongly established and issue affecting all of society that we must fight resolutely."