Europe
As Europe Grasps for Answers,
More Migrants Flood Its Borders
HEGYESHALOM,
Hungary — Throughout the day on Sunday, train after packed train
arrived at this border town from Budapest, the passengers smoothly
shifting to a gleaming Austrian train on the opposite side of the
platform and being whisked on to Vienna and beyond — 13,000 of them in
the first 36 hours after Hungary allowed throngs of refugees and migrants to travel toward Germany.
But
that is not the end. Thousands of migrants continue to flow through the
Balkans toward Hungary every day, rapidly approaching its southern
border with Serbia, government officials said. Two Greek ferries
carrying more than 4,000 migrants were scheduled to land Sunday in
Athens, a first stop on the migrant trail through the Balkans.
Marko Drobnjakovic/Associated Press
Pope Francis spoke to thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
Credit
Riccardo De Luca/Associated Press
On Sunday, Pope Francis
called upon Catholic parishes and religious communities to take in
refugees. And Germany has called for a quota system to distribute the
migrant population evenly throughout Europe.
But the European Union
remains deeply divided over what should be done, a debate that has
strained relations and threatened the 28-nation bloc’s proud policy of
open borders.
Far-right
politicians, mostly quiet so far, found their voice on Sunday with
Marine Le Pen of France, the National Front leader, complaining that a
widely dispersed photograph of a drowned Syrian child that had shocked
the world was being used to make Europeans “feel guilty.”
A
gathering of foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Sunday produced only
more discord. More talks are scheduled for this week. Germany, which has
admitted by far the largest number of migrants — it expects to accept
800,000 this year — has called upon other nations to accept more, but
found much resistance, especially in Eastern Europe.
“We
have been facing this challenge for several months, and we continue to
take in refugees,” said Peter Altmaier, chief of staff to the German
chancellor, Angela Merkel. “But we need a readiness in other European countries to join in.”
Human
rights groups say that, for the foreseeable future, there is every
reason to expect migrants from Syria and other countries in crisis to
descend on Europe in ever greater numbers. In Syria alone, 11 million
people have been displaced by war, seven million within the country’s
borders and four million outside, mostly to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.
The
number of Syrians requesting asylum in Europe rose steadily for years
before attracting international attention, reaching an estimated 348,000
since April 2011, the month after the civil war there began. The
numbers are accelerating as the war worsens — from 8,000 asylum claims
in 2011 to 56,000 in 2013 and 150,000 in 2014, according to United
Nations figures. Those numbers reflect only asylum claims, not the far
greater flow of those claiming refugee status.
Another
factor in the increase is the discovery of routes through Turkey and
Greece that are safer and often cheaper than the old route through
Libya, which involved a perilous land trek and an equally dangerous ride
across the Mediterranean Sea. Human rights experts say that the
combination of the new routes, an apparently welcoming Europe,
deteriorating security in Syria and the higher socioeconomic status of
the recent migrants virtually ensures increases.
Hungary,
on the front lines of the crisis and led by an anti-immigrant prime
minister and governing party, has sent mixed signals on its intentions.
While allowing migrants already in the country to head to the West,
officials began a crackdown over the weekend on new arrivals. Hungary
opened a new holding camp with space for 1,000 people — surrounded by
razor wire and guarded by dogs and the police — in the southern border
town of Roszke, and rights groups quickly assailed the camp as inhumane.
Hungary
is also building a razor-wire fence along its 108-mile southern border
with Serbia, and it has passed harsher laws involving the treatment of
migrants and penalties for helping them. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has cast it as a fight for Christian values against a Muslim surge.
On
the Austrian border on Sunday, however, cooperation between the
Hungarian police and Austrian rail officials created a seamless corridor
through Hegyeshalom, the main crossing between Budapest and Vienna.
Magdalena
Frank, a real estate agent from Vienna, squatted with a circle of
volunteers on the dusty platform at the Hegyeshalom station, part of an
assembly line of sandwich makers. “We are waiting for a train of
refugees due in a few minutes,” she said, pushing a lock of hair out of
her eyes.
All
around were piles of diapers, bananas, savory pies, dates and enough
bottled water to fill a swimming pool. “When we heard what was
happening, I contacted some friends and we decided we had to come and
help,” said Barbara Secka, a mechanical engineering student from Vienna.
“We all began cooking.”
When
the 5 p.m. train from Budapest arrived, a half-hour late and with
standing room only, more than 500 migrants poured onto the platform.
“Welcome!” the volunteers shouted in English. “Have something to eat!”
With stunning efficiency, the volunteers distributed the aid, moved the
migrants into the adjacent train and waved goodbye as it pulled out of
the station.
Meanwhile,
a convoy of more than 100 Austrian vehicles made their way to Budapest
on Sunday, vowing to offer rides to Vienna for any migrants who wanted
them — and ignoring warnings from the Hungarian authorities that this
violated that country’s refugee laws.
Along Hungary’s border with Serbia, the scene was anything but smooth.
“While
Europe rejoiced in happy images from Austria and Greece yesterday,
refugees crossing into Hungary right now see a very different picture:
riot police and a cold, hard ground to sleep on,” Barbora Cernusakova,
an Amnesty International researcher, said in a statement released by the
group.
The
new camp in Roszke was being called a “reception center” by Hungarian
officials, though the police on the scene referred to it as an “alien
holding center.”
Both
migrants and relief groups were reporting harsh treatment and a hostile
reception from the border authorities. On the Serbian side, officials
temporarily blocked at least some trains headed north, amid numerous
reports of the police demanding bribes to allow the migrants to pass.
Photos on social media from the new camp showed the police with dogs guarding a desolate compound surrounded by high fences.
Omar
Hadad, 24, from Dara’a, Syria, had been at a nearby camp along the
border before he was shifted on Sunday to one west of Budapest, in the
town of Bicske.
“The
Hungarian police came into the camp and they beat me with batons,” he
said of his time in the holding center near the Serbian border. He
peeled off his socks to show a bruised foot and leg.
Journalists
were not allowed into the Bicske camp, but the migrants could come out
or speak across the entrance gate. Several other migrants rushed toward
Mr. Hadad when they saw him displaying his wounds.
“Here,
here, look,” said Salam Barajakly, a student from Damascus who began
counting off the wounds and scars on his arms, legs and neck that he
said he had gotten on the journey to Hungary, some by accident, some
from the police, some from crawling under razor-wire fences.
Two
men held out smartphones showing videos of the camp where they had been
held near the Serbian border. Hundreds of people squatted in the dust
while the police tossed sandwiches and bottles of water to them over a
barbed-wire fence.
“Like a zoo,” Mr. Hadad said. “Like we are dogs.”
The
group had arrived at the Bicske camp an hour earlier and was waiting to
make the mile-and-a-quarter walk to the rail station to catch a train
toward Hegyeshalom. The Hungarian guards at the camp were encouraging
the migrants to go.
Confusion
and lack of information were endemic, as they have been throughout the
migrant crisis in Budapest. Even the various Hungarian authorities could
not agree on the latest rules.
On Saturday, migrants in Vienna crowded onto trains headed for Munich.
By NABIH BULOS on Publish Date September 5, 2015.
Watch in Times Video »
At
the Bicske station, a midafternoon train to the border was held up for
10 minutes as an angry conductor tried to throw migrants without tickets
off the train.
“Off! Off!” she shouted. “No tickets, then off!”
A
group of police officers on the platform called out to her to let the
migrants travel. “Don’t you know they are supposed to travel for free?”
one asked.
“Says who? They need tickets,” the woman said.
Even when the chief of police told the woman to allow the migrants to travel, she resisted.
Finally, a railroad official showed up and told her to leave the migrants alone.
“Oh, so no tickets are necessary,” she said. “I guess I don’t have a reason to work anymore, do I?”
And she stormed off, taking no one’s ticket.
HICKOK
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