Photo: Austria says it will grant entry to buses from Hungary that are filled with asylum seekers. (Reuters: Leonhard Foeger)
Related Story: 'I've paid highest price': Father of drowned Syrian boy buries family
Long lines of buses have left Budapest packed with asylum seekers bound for Austria, which said it had agreed with Germany to let them in as Hungary gave in to crowds that had set out on foot for western Europe.
Key points
- Hungary, overwhelmed, opts to bus asylum seekers to Austria
- More than 1,000 people had set out on foot
- Hundreds break out of border camp, escape train
- Austria, Germany agree to allow asylum seekers entry
- Father buries Syrian boy whose death shocked the world
Hungary's right-wing government said around 100 buses would pick up thousands of migrants camped in front of Budapest's main railway terminus and another 1,200 striding down the main highway to Vienna.
Austria said they would be granted entry, regardless of European Union rules. Smiling asylum seekers boarded the buses, waving goodbye to Hungarian volunteers and aid workers.
"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.
The Hungarian government cited safety concerns for the decision to lay on buses, after days of cancelled trains and confrontation with riot police refusing to let the asylum seekers pass.
But it appeared to mark an admission that the government had lost control in the face of overwhelming numbers of people determined to reach western Europe having fled war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Photo: Around 1,000 were estimated to have started walking from Budapest to the Austrian border. (Reuters: Laszlo Balogh)
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, determined to get to the richer and more generous countries of northern and western Europe, mainly Germany.
Several thousand have been camped outside the Budapest train station, but on Friday a crowd that swelled to more 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.
Clutching pictures of German chancellor Angela Merkel, they broke through a police barricade.
YouTube: 'We walk to Germany'
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.
The turmoil contrasted with a pledge by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban to get to grips with Europe's worst humanitarian crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
The Hungarian parliament on Friday tightened laws that Mr Orban's government said would effectively seal Hungary's southern border to migrants as of September 15.
Mr Orban hailed "a different era", but Friday brought more desperate scenes in a crisis that has left Europe groping for unity.
A Pakistani man died, police said. State television said he had stumbled and hit his head as he ran down train tracks.
Asylum seekers clash with police in riot gear
Photo: Riot police stand guard in front of a migrant reception centre in Roszke where 2,300 migrants are threatening to break out. (Reuters: Stringer Shanghai)
Hungary has emerged as the main entry point for asylum seekers reaching the EU by land across the Balkan peninsula.
Mr Orban, one of Europe's most outspoken critics of mass immigration, took to the airwaves to issue caustic warnings that Europeans could become a minority on their own continent.
But his government's plans for a crackdown appeared to be breaking down in the face of such large numbers headed for Germany, which had said Syrian refugees could register there regardless of where they enter the EU, contrary to EU rules.
More than 140,000 people have been recorded entering Hungary so far this year through the EU's external border with Serbia, where Mr Orban's government is building a 3.5-metre-high wall. Countless others may have entered without registering.
On the border, police gave chase and halted traffic on a nearby motorway after 300 people fled a crowded reception centre in Roszke near Serbia.
They were eventually caught, police said, but hundreds broke out again despite a ring of hundreds of officers in full riot gear, clutching shields. Some were taken away by bus.
In Bicske, a two-day standoff ended after 300 asylum seekers managed to escape from a train held up by police demanding they disembark and go to a nearby reception centre. The remainder went voluntarily.
"No camp. No Hungary. Freedom train," someone had written with shaving foam on the side of the train.
Photo: Asylum seekers are escorted to buses by police near the reception centre in Roszke. (Reuters: Marko Djurica)
Father buries boy whose drowning shocked the world
On Friday, Hungarian lawmakers adopted some of a raft of measures creating "transit zones" on the border, where asylum seekers would be held until their requests are processed and deported if denied.
The measures introduce jail terms for those who cross the border without permission or damage the fence, and may eventually provide for the use of the army.
Budapest's hard line has produced scenes of chaos and desperation this week, symbolic of the discord and recriminations within a divided Europe over how to respond.
Photo: Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi is buried in Kobane. (AFP)
The human cost was underlined as the father of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi, whose drowning on the crossing to Europe shocked the world, buried his family in their war-torn hometown.
Symbolising the human tragedy at the heart of the crisis, Aylan's father Abdullah Kurdi returned Friday to the Syrian border town of Kobane to lay his son to rest along with Aylan's brother and mother, who also died.
"I will have to pay the price for this the rest of my life," the devastated father told mourners, after personally carrying his sons' bodies to Kobane's Martyrs' Cemetery, where around 100 people attended the ceremony.
The family were driven out of Kobane in June after fierce fighting between Kurdish militants and Islamic State militants.
Pressure on European leaders to act
There was a global outrage after photos showed the little boy's body lying in the surf of a Turkish resort, washed up after the boat taking the family to Greece sank.
Angry protesters booed European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans and EU home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos when they visited the Greek island of Kos.
EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss the crisis ahead of a state of the union address next week by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker when he will lay out new measures which could well exacerbate EU differences.
Photo: Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban said Budapest was defending Europe's Schengen zone from a huge influx of migrants. (AFP: Thierry Charlier)
Mr Juncker has proposed mandatory quotas for resettling 160,000 refugees, after an earlier plan for 40,000 met stiff opposition, notably from Hungary, and attracted offers of places for only 32,000.
Germany and France back quotas, but Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia together rejected any quota systems.
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.
However, he insisted they would be refugees from camps on the border with Syria and not those already in other EU member states. To do that would just encourage more people to make the perilous journey to Europe, he said.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has warned the EU faced a "defining moment" and called for the mandatory resettlement of 200,000 refugees by EU states.
ABC/wires
- Abbott defends border policies amid New York Times criticism
- Europe's asylum seeker crisis: How you can help
- 'Let this be the last': Drowned toddler's father calls for action
- Leaders react to images of drowned toddler on Turkish beach
- Asylum seekers in Hungary pulled off train, throw themselves on tracks
- Hundreds of asylum seekers storm Budapest train station
From other news sites:
- The Sydney Morning Herald: Refugee crisis: Migrants lie on railway tracks in Hungary
- News.com.au: Mother, baby on track in Hungary amid migrant chaos
- The Independent (UK): Refugee crisis: Hundreds of volunteers join convoy to take asylum seekers from Hungary to Austria as train stalemate continues
- Globe and Mail (Canada): Migrants break out of camp as Hungary loses grip
- BBC: Migrant crisis: What solutions can the EU find?
