Two decades after western Europe began to abolish internal border controls, Germany installed impromptu checkpoints again, grappling with the continent’s biggest wave of asylum-seekers since World War II.
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Hundreds of refugees marched along the highway to cross the Saalbrucke border bridge between Freilassing and Salzburg, after German and Austrian railways suspended services between Salzburg and Munich on Wednesday.
BRUSSELS-Austria and Slovakia said they were reinstating border controls Monday to cope with a flood of refugees, following a similar move by Germany, which warned it could face up to one million migrant arrivals this year.
Meanwhile, United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, in a speech at the UN Human Rights Council Monday, called on countries to stop detention and “ill-treatment” of refugees.
“The objectives of our efforts must be to help ensure that we can go back to the normal Schengen system of open borders between Schengen Member States as soon as feasible”, it said.
De Maiziere said his country would remain committed to European and national guidelines on protecting refugees.
Also caught up in the traffic jam was Rudolf Windhofer, a 56-year-old taxi driver from the Austrian city of Salzburg, who was taking students across the border to Bavaria state.
In the eastern province of Burgenland, which borders Hungary, a police spokesman said the border controls had started, but he confirmed that migrants arriving at Austria’s eastern border would not be denied entry.
He contrasted that treatment with firm but friendly German police keeping migrants separate from other travellers with a thin strip of red-and-white tape: “Very nice”, he said, and fellow refugees nodded.
Greifender said authorities have been carefully dealing with the situation but should it worsen shutting down the station would be the last resort.
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview published on September 13 that his country was now reaching its limit as thousands of refugees continue to stream across its borders every day.
“They would be pretty stupid to still be arriving now”.
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But when he saw that Syrians were still being taken in, he and his family proceeded to Freilassing station where they were given papers to continue to a registration centre farther north. These checks may be rolled out to the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic.
