Reuters
Photo: Exhausted migrants rested after arriving at the registration point for migrant arrivals at the main station in Munich, Germany. (Reuters: Michael Dalder)
Related Story: Exhausted asylum seekers stream into Austria from Budapest
Related Story: German business makes case to welcome refugees
Related Story: 'I've paid highest price': Father of drowned Syrian boy buries family
Austria and Germany have thrown open their borders to thousands of exhausted asylum seekers, bussed to the Hungarian border by a right-wing government that had tried to stop them but was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers reaching Europe's frontiers.
Key points:
- Around 8,000 asylum seekers arrive in Munich
- Asylum seekers have travelled from Vienna
- More than 6,500 asylum seekers crossed into Austria from Hungary
- Situation developing with crowds again gathering in Budapest
Left to walk across the border into Austria, the asylum seekers, many of them fleeing war in Syria, were then whisked by train and shuttle bus to Vienna and then on by train to Munich and other cities in Germany.
The last train carrying an estimated 1,000 asylum seekers pulled into Munich from Austria after midnight, bringing the total to have arrived in the Bavarian capital since Saturday to about 8,000.
A similar total is expected to arrive in Munich later on Sunday.
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 took 800 people to Dortmund and 460 to Frankfurt on Saturday evening.
In Salzburg, the last city before the German border, teams from aid organisations and volunteers rushed to pass warm clothes, shoes and cigarettes through the doors of trains stopped at platforms.
Photo: A special train service and buses helped transport migrants from the border to Vienna, Austria. (Reuters: Dominic Ebenbichler)
Munich police said Arabic-speaking interpreters were helping asylum seekers with procedures at the emergency registration centres. 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.
Another man, who declined to be named, said: "Hungary should be fired from the European Union. Such bad treatment."
Video: Austria, Germany open borders to asylum seekers (ABC News)
Warning: This story contains an image that may distress some readers.
In Budapest, almost emptied of asylum seekers the night before, the main railway station was again filling up with new arrivals, a seemingly unrelenting human surge northwards through the Balkan peninsula from Turkey and Greece.
But with trains to western Europe cancelled, hundreds set off by foot, saying they would walk to the Austrian border, 170 kilometres away, like others had tried on Friday.
Hungary said they would no longer provide buses to take them to the border. By contrast, Austrian state railway company OeBB said it had added 4,600 seats for migrants by extending trains and laying on special, non-scheduled services.
Austria said it had agreed with Germany that it would allow the migrants access, waiving asylum rules that require them to register in the first EU state they reach.
Photo: Austrian policemen were required to help children and mothers board their train in Nickelsdorf, Austria. (AFP: Joe Klamar)
Hungary to deploy troops, defend southern border
Hungary, the main entry point into Europe's borderless Schengen zone for migrants, has taken a hard line, vowing to seal its southern border.
The country is building a 3.5-metre-high fence along its border with Serbia, and on Friday its parliament adopted measures the government said would effectively seal the southern frontier to asylum seekers as of September 15.
On Saturday, prime minister Viktor Orban said Hungary would also deploy police forces.
"It's not 150,000 [asylum seekers coming] that some [in the EU] want to divide according to quotas, it's not 500,000, a figure that I heard in Brussels, it's millions, then tens of millions, because the supply of immigrants is endless," he said.
YouTube: Church leaders welcome arrivals in Munich
Hungary said it had recorded 165,000 asylum seekers entering so far this year. In total, about 350,000 refugees and migrants have reached the border of the EU this year, leaving the 28-nation group arguing over burden-sharing.
At an EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg, the group failed to agree on any practical steps out of the crisis.
"Given the challenges facing our German friends as well, all of Europe needs to wake up. [The time for] reverie is over," Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said.
"Now the continent of Europe is challenged. In this great challenge the entire continent has to give a unified answer."
British finance minister George Osborne said Europe and Britain must offer asylum to those genuinely fleeing persecution but also boost aid, defeat people-smuggling gangs and tackle the conflict in Syria to ease the crisis.
The influx is expected to cost Germany around 10 billion euros ($16 billion) this year, but chancellor Angela Merkel insisted Berlin could still balance it budget while fulfilling its "duty" to offer asylum to refugees.
Photo: Asylum seekers arrive at the Austrian-Hungarian border station of Hegyeshalom (Reuters: Laszlo Balogh)
Boy's body catches world's attention
Pressure to take effective action rose sharply after pictures flashed around the world of the body of a three-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy washed up on a Turkish resort beach, personalising the collective tragedy of the asylum seekers.
Aylan Kurdi drowned along with his mother and brother while trying to cross by boat on a tiny rubber dinghy to a Greek island.
Then on Saturday, a newborn boy was found dead after his migrant parents reached the shores of a Greek island in a boat from Turkey.
The baby boy was taken from the island of Agathonisi to a hospital on the nearby island of Samos, where he was pronounced dead, the Greek coastguard service said.
Photo: Refugees and migrants wait for a registration procedure at the port of Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos. (Reuters: Dimitris Michalakis)
Greece is struggling to cope with a wave of migrants and refugees from the war in Syria making the short crossing from Turkey to its eastern islands, including Kos, Lesbos, Samos and Agathonisi.
Thousands are waiting to be identified and ferried to Athens to continue their trip to other European countries.
A Greek ferry unloaded 2,500 migrants at the port of Piraeus on Saturday, bringing the total number of people moved to the country's mainland since last Monday to 13,373, the coastguard said.
In a sign of how difficult the situation has become, scuffles broke out for the second day on Lesbos in a row between police and about 3,000 asylum seekers protesting about lengthy identification procedures.
A record 50,000 people hit Greek shores in July alone and were ferried from islands unable to cope to the mainland by a government already floundering in financial crisis and keen to dispatch them promptly north into Macedonia, where they enter Serbia and then Hungary.
Reuters
