Refugees pouring into Germany
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THOUSANDS of refugees streamed into Germany yesterday, many traveling through Austria from Hungary where they had been stranded against their will for days, while European Union governments argue over how to respond.
A convoy of around 140 cars and vans filled with food and water left Vienna to collect exhausted refugees, many from Syria, who had set out to walk 170 kilometers through the rain from Hungary’s capital Budapest to the Austrian border, from where many would continue onto Germany.
Onlookers clapped and chanted, “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,” as volunteers loaded their vehicles with food, water and soft toys.
However, the EU is deeply divided over how to cope with the number of people arriving from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, testing the principle of solidarity, making the 28-nation bloc look ineffective and heartless, pitting member states against each other, and fueling political populism and anti-Muslim sentiment.
German police said they expected a record 10,000 refugees to arrive through the southern state of Bavaria yesterday.
About 6,000 had already arrived, mostly on trains and buses from Hungary via Austria, and 4,000 more were expected, federal police said yesterday.
However, Bavarian state officials said 6,800 refugees had entered Germany on Saturday, .
Germany has said it expects 800,000 refugees and migrants this year and urged other EU members to open their doors. But others say the focus should be on tackling the violence in the Middle East that has caused them to flee their homes.
The numbers in Europe are small compared to several million refugees in Syria’s neighbors Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.
A dozen or so well-wishers offering chocolate and bananas greeted between 600 and 700 people, mostly from Syria, arriving on two trains arriving in the southern German city of Munich, early yesterday. A third train was expected with about 450 people, a regional administration spokeswoman said.
Most were bussed to reception centers after being given medical checks, food and clean clothing. Many said they were from Syria, while others were from Afghanistan or Iraq.
In Hungary, refugees freely boarded trains at Keleti station in Budapest, following handwritten signs in Arabic directing people to trains to Hegyeshalom on the border with Austria. Volunteers handed out food and clothing to hundreds of refugees filling the station.
Around 4,000 crossed into Austria from Hungary yesterday, the Austrian police said. More than 10,000 have left Hungary since the border was thrown open on Saturday after thousands spent days camping outside the station.
Many are happy to have left Hungary after days of confrontation with police and chaotic handling by authorities.
Hungary deployed more than 100 buses overnight on Saturday to take to Austria thousands of refugees who had streamed into the country after northward journeys through the Balkans from Greece. Austria said it had agreed with Germany to allow them access, waiving asylum rules that require registering in the first EU country they reach.
Wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags, long lines of people, many carrying children, got off buses on the Hungarian side of the border and walked through the rain into Austria.
“We’re happy. We’ll go to Germany,” said a Syrian man. Europe’s biggest and most affluent economy is the favored destination of most.
Hungarian officials have portrayed the crisis as a defense of Europe’s prosperity, identity and “Christian values” against mainly Muslim migrants.
German Interior Ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns said Berlin’s decision to open its borders to Syrians was an exceptional case for humanitarian reasons. He said Europe’s so-called Dublin rules, which require people to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, had not been suspended.
At an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on Saturday, the usual diplomatic conviviality unravelled as they failed to agree on any practical steps out of the crisis. Ministers are especially at odds over proposals for country-by-country quotas to take in asylum seekers.
The flow of people risking the dangerous journey on flimsy boats across the Mediterranean, and baton-wielding police on Balkan borders, shows no sign of abating, as they flee a four-year-long civil war in Syria that has killed about 250,000 civilians and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Africa.
On the Greek Island of Lesbos, about 500 Afghans protesting at lengthy identification procedures scuffled with Greek police.
A Greek ferry took 1,744 refugees to Athens yesterday and another one with 2,500 on board was expected later.
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