The German government ordered police to begin checking travel documents Sunday from anyone entering from the southern frontier with Austria, where migrant arrivals have soared since Chancellor Angela Merkel effectively opened German borders to refugees a week ago.
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Some countries are bickering over how other countries are handling the crisis.
Merkel herself had called Saturday on Athens, which facing its own deep economic crisis, to make more effort to protect the EU’s external borders.
As the debate in Europe as to how to handle the numbers of migrants making the journey to the continent continues, at least 34 people died in the Aegean Sea when their boat capsized off the island of Farmakonisi.
“Greece is strictly applying European and global treaties without ignoring the humanity of the situation”, she said on a visit to Lesbos, an island which has been struggling with the massive influx.
This past Wednesday saw train service stopped between Germany and Denmark after 100 refugees refused to leave a train in the latter country, as they wanted to officially seek asylum in Germany.
Mexican Tourists Killed in Egypt…Egypt’s police and military killed 12 Egyptians and Mexicans and injured 10 when they accidentally shot at a Mexican tourist convoy whilst engaging militants in the country’s western desert, the ministry of interior said on Monday. It also said Germany-bound train traffic will also be halted.
The president of the Upper Bavaria region, Christoph Hillenbrand, said he did not know “how we can cope”, according to the Bild am Sonntag tabloid which headline its article “Munich on the brink of collapse”.
“Bluntly, people coming from someplace like Bangladesh, they might be escaping poverty but their very life is not at risk in normal circumstances,” he said.
In a sign that the city was running out of options, regular passenger trains will be cleared out to transport refugees.
“The German decision of today underlines the urgency to agree on the measures proposed by the European Commission in order to manage the refugee crisis“.
He called on all European Union (EU) Member States not just to register the refugees entering the EU, but also to carry out the asylum procedure.
“We are helping, we are ready to help, but on a voluntary basis”, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Sunday. The Hungarian parliament has empowered courts to imprison anyone convicted of illegally crossing the border.
In neighbouring Slovakia, Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said he would try to block quotas. “So these people are not fleeing danger”.
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“Hungary has become a place of humiliation and suffering for these asylum seekers“, Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch told AFP.
