Photo: Asylum seekers arrive at the Austrian-Hungarian border station of Hegyeshalom (Reuters: Laszlo Balogh)
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Thousands of exhausted asylum seekers have streamed into Austria after being bussed to the border by the Hungarian government, which gave up trying to hold them back after days of confrontation and chaos.
Hungary's right-wing government deployed dozens of buses to move asylum seekers from the capital Budapest, and pick up over 1,000 others who were walking down the main highway to Vienna.
Austria said it had agreed with Germany that they would allow the people access, unable to enforce the rules of a European asylum system brought to breaking point by the continent's worst refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
Key points:
- Hungary, overwhelmed, opts to bus migrants on to Austria
- Over 1,000 people had set out on foot
- Father buries Syrian toddler whose death shocked the world
- Pressure remains on world leaders to respond to asylum seeker crisis
Wrapped in blankets against the rain, hundreds of visibly tired asylum seekers, many carrying small children, climbed off buses on the Hungarian side of the border and walked in a long line into Austria, receiving fruit and water from aid workers.
Some waiting Austrians held signs that read: "Refugees welcome."
"We're happy. We'll go to Germany," said a Syrian man who gave his name as Mohammed.
Austrian police said around 4,000 refugees had arrived since the early morning hours, with many more to come.
"At times the rain has been really heavy, now it's drizzling a bit. The people are all soaked," Hans Peter Doskozil, chief of police in Burgenland state, told the Austria Press Agency.
A special half-hourly train service is running to take people from the border to Vienna, on top of 20 buses shuttling back and forth between the Austrian capital and the border with Hungary.
Hungary cited traffic safety for its decision to move the asylum seekers on. But it appeared to mark an admission that the government had lost control in the face of overwhelming numbers determined to reach the richer nations of northern and western Europe at the end of an often perilous journey from war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
On Friday, hundreds broke out of an overcrowded camp on Hungary's border with Serbia; others escaped from a stranded train, sprinting away from riot police down railway tracks, while still more took to the highway by foot led by a one-legged Syrian refugee and chanting "Germany, Germany!"
The scenes were emblematic of a crisis that has left Europe groping for answers, and for unity.
Photo: Asylum seekers arrive at the Austrian-Hungarian border station of Hegyeshalom (Reuters: Heinz-Peter Bader)
By nightfall, the Keleti railway terminus in Budapest, for days a campsite of migrants barred from taking trains west to Austria and Germany, was almost empty, as smiling families boarded a huge queue of buses that then snaked out of the capital.
The migrants left shoes, clothes and mattresses scattered behind them. Helicopters circled overhead.
"Because of today's emergency situation on the Hungarian border, Austria and Germany agree in this case to a continuation of the refugees' journey into their countries," Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann said on his Facebook page.
Even as the buses arrived to collect them, some people remained suspicious, mindful of how hundreds of their number had boarded a train on Thursday that they believed was heading to the border but was stopped just west of Budapest by riot police who ordered them into a reception camp.
Ahmed, from Afghanistan, said of the buses to the border: "If it is true, it is victory. Maybe we can find a way now."
For days, Hungary has cancelled all trains going west to Austria and Germany, saying it is obliged under EU rules to register all asylum seekers, who should remain there until their requests are processed. Many have refused and several thousand had camped outside the Budapest train station.
On Friday, a crowd that swelled to over 1,000 broke away, streaming through the capital, over a bridge and out onto the main highway from Budapest to Vienna, escorted by police struggling to keep the road open. Some clutched pictures of German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Others, in Bicske to the west of Budapest, sprinted down railway tracks, escaping a packed train held back by police for two days, while in the south they broke down barriers and wrestled with helmeted riot officers at an overcrowded border camp near Serbia.
Hungary migrant trek a 'wake up call'
Austrian foreign minister Sebastian Kurz the plight of thousands of asylum seekers stranded in Hungary, now being taken into his country, was a "wake up call" for Europe.
"This has to be an eye opener how messed up the situation in Europe is now," Mr Kurz said as he arrived for informal talks with his EU peers dominated by the deepening asylum crisis.
"I hope that this serves as a wake up call that [the situation] cannot continue."
The 28-nation EU is sharply divided over what to do with the flood of migrants fleeing war and turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa.
Photo: Asylum seekers are escorted to buses by police near the reception centre in Roszke. (Reuters: Marko Djurica)
Under-fire British prime minister David Cameron, accused of not doing enough to share the burden, said he would set out plans next week to take "thousands more" refugees.
Germany has led efforts to open the doors, saying it would accept 800,000 refugees this year and backing plans for mandatory quotas in the EU.
Hungary, along with many of the bloc's newer eastern members, flatly opposes quotas and insists current rules should be applied whereby asylum seekers must be processed in the country they first arrive in, not the country they want to go to.
In this case, most of the refugees are Syrians arriving via Greece which has been overwhelmed by the numbers.
Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said the problems in Hungary had been caused by "the failed migration policy of the EU and ... irresponsible statements made by some European politicians".
Mr Szijjarto did not elaborate but Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban bluntly blamed Germany earlier this week for encouraging people to risk their lives coming to Europe with its promise of more places for refugees.
