They traversed Greece, a nation paralyzed by economic crisis and too poor to handle a flow of people that in July was the highest on record. They were met by Hungarian police who escorted them to a nearby refugee registration centre, according to Hungarian state news agency MTI.
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It is a long parade of misery unparalleled in Europe in recent years. But the continent has so far failed to agree on how to respond.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Germany and France will meet in Berlin on Monday to seek a unified stance on efforts to tackle the biggest migrant crisis since World War II, as hundreds more people poured into Serbia in a desperate bid for a better life. In Hungary, that is taking the form of 80 miles of barbed wire and fencing.
The conference to be held on Thursday will have from the EC’s part Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, EC Vice-President Maros Sefcovic in charge of Energy Union and Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations. And it is straining the weakest countries, such as Greece, that are on migration’s front lines. But Lazar told the daily Magyar Hirlap newspaper it was not enough.
“I just want to cross to continue my journey”, said Ahmed, also from Syria. Fresh waves are leaving because of the violence of the Islamic State.
Germany says it expects a record 750,000 asylum-seekers to arrive this year, in a crisis overwhelming authorities in Europe from the Greek islands to the French port of Calais. Their group huddles under a tree trying to figure out the Serbian phone network. So, if they subsequently moved to another one, they could be returned to the country of entry.
Their arrivals are reverberating around Europe. Tiny Baltic nations have revolted at a proposal to make them each shelter a couple hundred. “And the second point is, it’s also the fault of Greece if there is no support for the refugees there”, Kurz said. “And while Europe squabbles, people die”.
For them, it’s a race against time, as Hungary rushes to build a fence to block them from entering the country. In some stretches of the 80-mile-long frontier with Serbia, it is comprised of tall coils of razor wire.
The fence is one of several measures making it more hard for refugees to enter and stay in Hungary.
Hungary demanded more money from the EU to alleviate the burden, saying the distribution of funds was “humiliating”.
In Austria, police said 37 people were injured – seven seriously – when two vans packed with migrants collided near the Hungarian border yesterday.
“They are often physically exhausted”, said Fleming. “We refuse to take on the state’s role of feeding and caring for them”.
The people who actually have to deal with the daily reality of massive population shifts, conducted without the slightest thought of securing their consent, tend to be a bit more eager for their expensive governments to enforce border integrity. “Police used guns and tear gas”. He said his students cried when he told them that he had chose to leave, but he couldn’t take it anymore.
They boarded rickety vessels to cross the Aegean Sea, walked through Greece and broke a sealed border to pass through Macedonia and into Serbia. But even these limited facilities are only half-full as most migrants hurry to the border. The dilemma is dominating her schedule.
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The Times describes both pro- and anti-migrant demonstrations in Germany, whose Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, “notably demurred when invited to criticize Hungary’s fence at a news conference last week”.
