Migrants wait to board the train that will take them towards Munich, Germany at the Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, August 31, 2015.
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Hungarian authorities have shut down Budapest’s main train station, stranding hundreds of migrants, mostly from conflict-ridden areas of the Middle East, who are trying to travel on to Austria and Germany.
Austrian police checked papers of the migrants, with many not having EU visas.
Hundreds of migrants have arrived by rail in the Austrian capital Vienna after being held for several hours at the Hungarian border.
The center at a former barracks near Ingolstadt opened Tuesday and is meant to accommodate 500 migrants.
Large numbers of people have been attempting to reach Austria and Germany by train after entering Hungary.
“The move came amid chaotic scenes after hundreds of migrants had tried to board services to Austria and Germany”.
“This is insane”, said Baba Mujhse, a Egyptian-Hungarian volunteer at the Keleti train terminal, as he carried a small boy separated from his family in the uproar. Police shepherded them from the platform to a station outbuilding to be registered. “I do not think Hungary would need a single immigrant from Africa or the Middle East”, Lazar said.
Austrian police say the 71 migrants likely suffocated in a truck with Hungarian license plates that was abandoned last week in Austria on the Budapest-Vienna highway. Later they sat down, staring at a police blockade erected at the entrance. The crisis has polarized Europe, which, on the one hand, is committed to the principle of providing refuge for those in danger, but on the other hand has a growing sector of public opinion that believes too much immigration drives down wages and dilutes national cultures.
The grim discovery led to a security crackdown in Austria with massive tailbacks forming along the border on Monday, as officers inspected vehicles in search of people-smugglers and migrants.
In response to the differing laws across Europe governing the steady influx of asylum seekers, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Sunday criticized eastern European countries that have refused to take in migrants, singling out Hungary, which built a fence along its border with Serbia to keep migrants out.
A train also arrived in Munich from Budapest on Monday evening.
In contrast, the 28 EU nations, representing a half-billion people and the world’s most powerful trading bloc, have proved unable to share 40,000 Syrians and Eritreans arriving in Greece and Italy.
The latest developments as tens of thousands of migrants flood into countries across Europe.
William Lacy Swing, director general of the global Organization for Migration, said in an interview with The Associated Press that countries blocking migrants from boarding trains drive them to risky options. “We want to leave!” and “Merkel!”, they cried, referring to the German chancellor.
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Fights and scuffles broke out among the crowd near the Greek village of Idomeni, after migrants mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan attempted to rush past Macedonian border police.
