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 Chaos this week at the station in the Hungarian capital has become
the latest symbol of Europe's migration crisis, the continent's
worst since the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
More than 2,000 migrants, including families with children, were
waiting in the square at the station while Hungarians with IDs and
foreigners with valid passports could board the trains.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war and economic migrants
escaping poverty have been arriving in Europe, on rickety boats
across the Mediterranean and over land across the Balkan peninsula.
Nearly all reach the EU on its southern or eastern outskirts and
then press on for the richer and more generous countries further
north and west, ignoring EU rules which require them to wait for
processing in the country where they first arrive.
Germany, which is prepared to take by far the greatest number, has
begun accepting asylum claims from Syrian refugees regardless of
where they entered the EU, even though undocumented migrants are
theoretically barred from travel across the bloc. That has caused
confusion for its neighbors, which have alternated this week between
letting them through and blocking them.
Many have come overland across the Balkans through Hungary, which
allowed thousands to board trains for Germany on Monday but has
since called a halt to the travel, leaving migrants camped in the
summer heat in central Budapest.
Asked if Hungary would again let migrants board trains to Germany as
it did on Monday, a government spokesman said that Budapest would
observe European Union rules which bar travel by those without valid
documents. The station has been shut to migrants since Tuesday
morning.
"A train ticket does not overwrite EU rules," spokesman Zoltan
Kovacs added.
CONFOUNDED
The migration crisis has polarized and confounded the EU, which is
committed to the principle of accepting refugees fleeing real danger
but has no mechanism to compel its 28 member states to share out the
burden of receiving them.
Twenty-six European countries have eliminated border controls
between them under the EU's Schengen program, leaving no effective
mechanism in place to enforce the ban on undocumented migrants
traveling within the bloc.
Germany says that despite its decision to accept asylum applications
from Syrians who first arrive elsewhere in the EU, other states in
the bloc should continue to demand migrants register and remain
where they first arrive.
With about 50 police blocking the main gates to the Budapest train
station, migrants filled the large sunlit square in the morning,
playing cards, sleeping or charging their phones on electrical
outlets shared by television satellite trucks.
Willi Xylander, a 59 year-old German on holiday in Budapest, checked
out the scene, wondering if it was safe for passage for regular
travelers, including his wife and daughter who would be arriving the
next day.
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"We have heard so many stories about protests here that we were
concerned," he said.
Agnes Halmos, a 30 year-old nurse, said she was more sorry for the
migrants than scared of them.
"It's horrible that they are stuck here, thousands of them with just
five portable toilets and no place to spend a night," she said.
"There are infants here, for crying out loud!"
The relative calm was abruptly interrupted as a group of about 100
young men approached the square, marching behind a cardboard cutout
Afghan flag in a tight formation.
Their leader, 32-year-old Sanil Khan, said they had spent long
enough in Budapest and now they want to move on to Germany.
"I want my freedom, I have been on the road for a very long time,
and now I am in the European Union, and I want my freedom," he said,
visibly agitated.
As the column of men arrived in front of the train station, they
were immediately joined by hundreds of others, who broke into loud
cheers and chants of "Freedom, freedom!" and "Germany, Germany!"
A young Middle Eastern man in his twenties, wearing a reversed
baseball cap and a windbreaker emblazoned with the logo "CIA", was
lifted above the crowd. He called out to the crowd in Arabic: "Where
do you want to go?"
"Germany!" they shouted back.
Hungarian police said in a statement they were acting in compliance
with the Schengen code of border controls. They had stopped a van on
the motorway leading from the Serbian border to Budapest which
carried 10 Syrian and 10 Iraqi migrants and detained the Serbian
driver on suspicion of human trafficking.
(Writing by Krisztina Than and Marton Dunai; Editing by Peter Graff)
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