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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 victims, a Syrian woman and her daughter, who had been unaccounted for for several months, were detected on the end of last week. The freezers were concealed behind a drywall partition in the flat, located in the city of Innsbruck.

Two men, a 55-year-old Austrian and his 53-year-old brother, were detained in the month of June. The older man, a colleague of the female victim, stated to authorities last week that there had been an incident—but rejected intentional killing.

Speaking to the media previously, a spokesman for the legal authorities announced the pair were being kept in custody on "strong suspicion of intentional killing".

The names of those concerned have not been disclosed by police, in compliance with national regulations.

The vanishing of the mother and child was initially flagged by the cousin of the mother, who lives in Germany, on the 25th of July last year.

Authorities stated the woman's colleague claimed at the time she had embarked on an long journey with her child to see her family in the nation of Turkey.

The mother's debit card was then noted as being active abroad on multiple occasions.

Yet when investigators entered the woman's home, her cellphone was located.

A witness also stated overhearing a loud noise in the dwelling, and cries of "mama" on the day the pair were presumed to have gone missing.

A broader criminal probe was launched, with investigators discovering various messages sent from the woman's phone—among them a job termination message to her workplace and communications to the male associate.

Officials confirmed a four-figure sum was also moved to the suspect.

The head of the State Criminal Police Office told media representatives on recently that a storage facility had been rented out before the vanishing and a freezing appliance had been positioned inside.

The two suspects extracted the cooling unit from the unit on the day the mother and daughter went missing, the official revealed. And a week later, they obtained an additional appliance.

Investigators say they believe this indicates the deaths were planned in advance.

"The reason for their demise could not be determined due to the condition of the victims," the official stated.

Mayr—of the public prosecutor's office—stated the specific order of occurrences is still unclear, but the victims were professionally hidden and were not found during a earlier inspection.

Although the men were taken into custody in June, it was not until the 12th of November that the suspect admitted to an event and to hiding the bodies. He denies any intent to kill, investigators stated.

At the same time, his younger brother admitted to a concealment but rejected involvement in a homicide.

The two suspects are currently in pre-trial detention in detention centers in Innsbruck and Salzburg, around 117 miles (189km) apart.

Via a shared communication, Austria's Minister for Women and the top legal representative declared the "suspected killing of two... represents the swift and cruel conclusion of a mother and child and exposes a heartless setup".

"Women and girls are being murdered due to the simple reality that they are female," they added.

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