Hungary scrambles to confront migrant influx, Merkel heckled
ROSZKE, Hungary
(Reuters) - Hungary made plans on Wednesday to reinforce its southern
border with helicopters, mounted police and dogs, and was also
considering using the army as record numbers of migrants, many of them
Syrian refugees, passed through coils of razor-wire into Europe.
In Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 of them this
year, Chancellor Angela Merkel was heckled by dozens of protesters as
she visited an eastern town where violent anti-refugee protests erupted
at the weekend.
The surge in migrants seeking refuge from conflict or poverty in the
Middle East, Africa and Asia has confronted Europe with its worst
refugee crisis since World War Two, stirring social tensions and testing
the resources and solidarity of the 28-nation European Union.
A record 2,533 mainly Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis crossed
from Serbia into EU member Hungary on Tuesday, climbing over or
squirreling under a razor-wire barrier into the hands of an
over-stretched police force that struggled to fingerprint and process
them. Authorities said over 140,000 had been caught entering so far this
year. Unrest flared briefly at a crowded reception center in the border region of Roszke, with tear gas fired by police.
Another 1,300 were detained on Wednesday morning. More will have passed unnoticed, walking through gaps in a border fence being built by Hungary in what critics say is a futile attempt to keep them out. They packed a train station in the capital, Budapest, hundreds of men, women and children sleeping or sitting on the floor in a designated “transit zone” for migrants.
Almost all hope to reach the more affluent countries of northern and western Europe such as Germany and Sweden.
Visiting the eastern German town of Heidenau, where
violence broke out during weekend protests by far-right militants
against the arrival of around 250 refugees, Merkel said xenophobia would
not be tolerated. About 50 protesters booed, whistled and waved signs
that read “Volksverraeter” (traitor), a slogan adopted by the anti-Islam
PEGIDA movement earlier this year.
“There is no tolerance for those people who question the
dignity of others, no tolerance for those who are not willing to help
where legal and human help is required," Merkel told reporters and local
people. “The more people who make that clear ... the stronger we will
be.”
FINGERPRINTS
With
frequent attacks on refugee shelters and warnings of rising intolerance
of foreigners, Merkel’s cabinet agreed to double the funding this year
to help towns cope with the record number of arrivals.
Hungary, which is part of Europe’s Schengen passport-free
travel zone, is building a 3.5-metre high fence along its 175-km
(110-mile) border with Serbia, taking a hard line on what right-wing
Prime Minister Viktor Orban says is a threat to European security,
prosperity and identity.
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said parliament would
debate next week whether to employ the army in the border effort.
The numbers traveling through the cash-strapped Balkans
have soared in recent weeks, with 3,000 crossing into Macedonia daily
from Greece. The chief commissioner of Hungarian police, Karoly Papp, said police were readying six special border patrol units of an initial 2,106 officers, equipped with helicopters, horses and dogs, to be sent in depending on the situation on the Serbian border.
“They don’t have and will not get an order to shoot,” Papp told a news conference.
In Roszke, the police spokesman said some 200 migrants at
the reception center where unrest flared had refused to be
fingerprinted, fearing that, as per EU rules, if they are stopped later
elsewhere in the EU they will be returned to Hungary as their official
point of entry.
EXHAUSTED CHILDREN
“My brother is in Sweden,” said one migrant, who declined
to be named. “He told me to chop my hands off rather than give my
fingerprints to the Hungarians. So we’re trying to find a way to Austria
without meeting the Hungarian police.”Some spent the night in the open on the border, warming themselves around open fires and roasting corn plucked from the fields. As day broke, parents tried to rouse exhausted children.
Rabie Hajouk, a 29-year-old IT engineer who said he was from the devastated Syrian city of Homs, told Reuters: "It's not for money or for food, it's for freedom, freedom of mind, for education.”
Embroiled in a debilitating economic crisis, Greece has taken to ferrying mainly Syrian migrants from its overwhelmed islands to Athens. Some 50,000 hit Greek shores by boat from Turkey in July alone.
Some European leaders have complained that Greece fails to
register its arrivals, meaning their first recognized point of entry is
often elsewhere and Athens does not risk them being sent back.
The issue will be on the agenda of a conference in Vienna
on Thursday of Balkan leaders, joined by Merkel and EU foreign policy
chief Federica Mogherini.
Serbia said around 10,000 migrants were passing through the
country at any time, their stay lengthening as Hungary nears completion
of its border fence.
Prime Minister Alexander Vucic told Reuters Serbia would never close its borders but was looking for answers.
"What we want to hear tomorrow from Chancellor Merkel ...
from Frederica Mogherini ...is, what is the plan?" he said.
(Additional reporting by Krisztina Than in BUDAPEST, Matt
Robinson in BELGRADE, Tina Bellon in BERLIN and Hans-Edzard Busemann in
HEIDENAU, Germany; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Giles Elgood
and Philippa Fletcher)
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