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 Exhausted and confused, migrants crammed onto a train to the
Hungarian border town of Sopron, clinging to doors and squeezing
their children through open carriage windows.
Trains to Vienna and beyond to Germany were canceled, making it
unclear what would be the next stop for the migrants - many of them
refugees from wars in the Middle East.
Thousands have died at sea and scores have perished on land in
Europe's worst migration crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the
1990s.
Images of a drowned three-year-old face down in the surf on Turkish
beach, one of at least 12 who died there the previous day while
trying to sail for a Greek island, appeared in newspapers across the
continent, increasing public pressure on politicians to take action.
"He had a name: Alyan Kurdi. Urgent action required - A Europe-wide
mobilization is urgent," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on
Twitter. The images appeared days after 71 bodies were found in an
abandoned truck in Austria last week.
 The influx has strained the European Union’s asylum system to
breaking point, sowing division among its 28 nations and feeding the
rise of right-wing populists.
The major EU countries have taken sharply opposing positions on
whether to offer welcome. Germany plans to accept 800,000 refugees
this year, while Britain has set up a program to allow in Syrians
that has accepted just 216.
"As one of the world's richest countries, with good infrastructure,
a viable welfare state and a solid budget surplus, we are in a
position to rise to the occasion," German Labor and Social Affairs
Minister Andrea Nahles said at a briefing ahead of a G20 meeting in
Turkey.
Nearly all of the migrants arrive on the EU's southern and eastern
edges but press on for richer countries further north and west,
creating havoc for a bloc that normally allows free movement
internally but restricts it for undocumented migrants.
The train's departure from Budapest followed a two-day standoff with
police barring entry to the station to more than 2,000 migrants. On
Thursday the police stepped aside and the crowd surged past.
“We want to go to Germany but that train in the station, maybe it
goes nowhere. We heard it may go to a camp. So we will stay out here
and wait,” said Ysra Mardini, a 17-year-old from the Syrian capital
Damascus, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
As the train departed, lawmakers were debating a raft of amendments
to Hungary’s migration laws that the ruling party said would cut
illegal border crossings to "zero".
 They provide for the creation of holding zones on the country’s
southern border with Serbia, where construction crews are completing
a 3.5-metre-high fence.
Hungary has emerged as a flashpoint, as the primary entry point for
those traveling overland across the Balkans. Its right-wing
government is among the continent's most outspoken voices against
allowing mass immigration.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in Brussels for talks with European
leaders, said Hungarians and Europeans were “full of fear because
they see that the European leaders ... are not able to control the
situation.”
In an opinion piece for Germany’s Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung, he
wrote that his country was being “overrun” with refugees, most of
which, he noted, were Muslims, not Christians.
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“That is an important question, because Europe and European culture
have Christian roots. Or is it not already and in itself alarming
that Europe’s Christian culture is barely in a position to uphold
Europe’s own Christian values?” he asked.
CONFOUNDED
More than 100,000 asylum seekers arrived last month alone in
Germany. Prime Minister Angela Merkel has emerged as a leader on the
issue, arguing that providing refuge for those fleeing persecution
and war is a fundamental obligation.
Germany has begun accepting asylum claims from Syrian refugees
regardless of where they entered the bloc, suspending rules which
normally require them to register and remain in the first EU country
they reach.
Berlin's generosity has caused confusion for its neighbors, which
have alternated this week between letting migrants pass through and
blocking them. Hungary allowed thousands to board trains for Germany
on Monday but then called a halt to the travel, leaving migrants
camped in the summer heat in central Budapest.
Relatives of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose image drowned in a
red T-shirt, blue shorts and tiny sneakers captivated the world,
said the family were trying to reach Canada via Europe when they set
off from the Turkish coast.
His 5-year-old brother Galip and mother Rehan, 35, also died after
their boat capsized while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.
His father, Abdullah, was found semi-conscious and taken to
hospital.
Abdullah’s sister Teema, a resident of Vancouver, said she heard the
news from another of the boy's aunts: "She had got a call from
Abdullah, and all he said was, my wife and two boys are dead," Teema
Kurdi was quoted as saying in Canada's National Post newspaper.
The crisis has 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.
EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to unveil
proposals in an annual state-of-the-union address to the European
parliament next week. Interior ministers hold an emergency meeting
five days later.
(Additional reporting by Krisztina Than and Sandor Peto; Writing by
Matt Robinson and Peter Graff)
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