Austria, Germany Open Borders to Migrants Offloaded by Hungary
19 October 2018 13:50 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Budapest - Austria and Germany threw open their borders on Saturday to thousands of exhausted migrants from the east, bussed to the frontier by a right-wing Hungarian government that had tried to stop them but was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people.
Left to walk the last yards into Austria, rain-soaked migrants, many of them refugees from Syria's civil war, were whisked by train and shuttle bus first to Vienna and then on by train to Munich and other cities in Germany.
By early evening, about 6,000 had arrived in Munich and nearly 2,000 more were expected on two trains due after midnight, said Christoph Hillenbrand, head of the Upper Bavaria regional administration.
Clapped and cheered as they disembarked, new arrivals queued at registration tents to be screened, fed and clothed. Most were set to stay in Munich, although more trains were due to take 800 people to Dortmund and 460 to Frankfurt on Saturday evening.
Munich police said Arabic-speaking interpreters were helping refugees with procedures at the emergency registration centers. The seemingly efficient Austrian and German reception contrasted with the disorder prevalent in Hungary.
"It was just such a horrible situation in Hungary," said Omar, arriving in Vienna with his family.
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.
"The Dublin rules are still valid and we expect other European Union member states to stick to them," he said.
After days of confrontation and chaos, Hungary deployed more than 100 buses overnight to take thousands of the migrants who had streamed there from southeast Europe to the Austrian frontier. Austria said it had agreed with Germany to allow the migrants access, waiving the asylum rules.
AP | REUTERS | NATALIA SANTI
