|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The latest news as tens of thousands of migrants pour into countries across Europe. All times local (CET):
---
10:15 p.m.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken about the migrant crisis by phone with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"Both
sides agreed that Hungary and Germany are meeting their European
obligations," her office said in a brief statement late Saturday.
"Merkel
and Orban further agreed that today's onward travel of refugees due to
the emergency situation at the Hungarian border was - as already noted
yesterday - an exception."
Thousands of asylum
seekers reached Germany and Austria Saturday after a surprise overnight
effort by authorities to transport them out of Hungary, where they had
been stuck for days.
---
10:00 p.m.
Simone
Hilgers, a spokeswoman for the authorities in Upper Bavaria who are
coordinating the response to the refugee influx, says a total of about
6,000 people had come through Munich by 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).
Hilgers told The Associated Press that of the 6,000, about 1,700 had been sent onward to places outside Bavaria.
The
remaining 4,300 were either given temporary accommodation in Munich, or
taken with 27 buses to other locations in Bavaria, Germany's biggest
state. All were given medical care, food, drink and clothes, she said.
Apart
from the train to Saalfeld in Thuringia, a train carrying 460 people
went from Munich to Frankfurt. Another carrying 800 people is on its way
to Dortmund.
A train with 800 people is expected shortly after midnight, then a last train at 1 a.m. with 1,000 people on board.
---
9:50 p.m.
Hundreds
of migrants trying to leave the Greek island of Lesbos so they can make
their way to western Europe have clashed with police.
The
people, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, are frustrated that
authorities on the scenic Aegean Sea island are not processing them
quickly enough so they can travel to the mainland, and from there across
the Balkans to western Europe.
Several minor
clashes broke out between the two sides throughout Saturday. The latest
violence took place after nightfall, when several hundred appeared
intent on running to a ferry. At least one person was injured and taken
away by an ambulance. Police cleared the port area of the migrants,
except the estimated 2,000 due to leave for Athens at midnight (2100
GMT).
Saturday's clashes were the second between the two sides in Lesbos in as many days.
---
7:20 p.m.
Israel's opposition leader says the country should take in Syrian asylum seekers amid the current refugee crisis in Europe.
Isaac
Herzog said Saturday that "Jews cannot be apathetic" when hundreds of
thousands of refugees are seeking safety. He said the Jewish people have
suffered the world's silence before and cannot ignore the "murder and
massacre" taking place in Syria.
Herzog says Israel needs to be part of a global movement to ease the suffering of those in Syria and elsewhere.
Israel
has aided many of the wounded in the bloody Syrian civil war waging
next door but has stopped short of opening the borders to its longtime
enemy.
After a tense standoff in Hungary, scores of asylum seekers began making their way into Germany and Austria Saturday.
---
7:00 p.m.
Germany's
Defense Ministry says it is setting up emergency accommodation for
refugees in a school for army officers in the eastern city of Dresden.
The
ministry said in a statement Saturday that the school will provide
temporary accommodation for 350 migrants arriving from Hungary, starting
immediately.
The German army has already
provided space for about 11,800 people in 24 barracks around the
country, as well as several hundred more in over 140 tents.
---
5:35 p.m.
Thousands
filled the Republique plaza in central Paris in support of the
migrants, waving flags in solidarity. French public opinion has been
divided over how to handle the growing demands for asylum, with
unemployment far higher than in Germany and a rise in support for the
anti-immigration National Front party. But the subdued crowd in
Republique - the same plaza where tens of thousands gathered in
solidarity with the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in January - was a
demonstration of the shock many French felt after seeing the photo of
the dead Syrian boy on a Turkish beach.
One man held up a sign saying: "We are all descendants of immigrants."
---
3:10 p.m.
Hungary's
anti-immigrant prime minister says the emergency shipment of thousands
of migrants to Austria doesn't solve his country's growing challenge of
managing foreigners trying to travel through its territory.
Viktor
Orban, whose nationalist government is seeking to seal its southern
border with Serbia to block the path of asylum-seekers, told journalists
that Saturday's mass mobilization of buses to transport Arab and Asian
migrants west to Austria was an exceptional measure that would not be
repeated. He says the migrants' snarling of traffic on the country's
major motorway and decision to camp beside it Friday night posed too
grave of a safety risk for migrants and Hungarian motorists.
"It
is unacceptable for them to paralyze traffic on the highway and they
are putting their own lives at risk," Orban said of Friday's thousands
of marchers from Budapest. Buses collected them from the roadside
overnight and delivered them more than 150 kilometers (90 miles) west to
the Austrian border by dawn.
Orban was speaking at his ruling party's annual picnic near Lake Balaton southwest of Budapest.
---
3:00 p.m.
A chartered train with some 250 migrants on board has arrived in Munich after traveling non-stop from Vienna.
Federal
police spokesman Simon Hegewald told The Associated Press that a total
of about 600 people who were trying to reach western Europe from Hungary
have arrived in Munich since midnight.
The
migrants are being taken to a reception center for immigration and
asylum registration and may be distributed to shelters elsewhere in the
country over the coming days.
---
2:00 p.m.
Former
Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a renowned Euro-skeptic, has launched an
"Against Immigration" petition which calls "mass immigration a
fundamental threat for the stability of Europe and individual EU member
states."
In the text, Klaus called on the
Czech government to use all possible means, including police and armed
forces, to protect the country's border and to reject any plans by the
European Union to establish a quota system for accepting migrants in the
28-member bloc.
He said it was "unacceptable" for Germany and France to put pressure on other EU member states on the issue.
Meanwhile,
the Czech Republic's most famous female athlete, seven-time Olympic
gymnastics champion Vera Caslavska, published an appeal to the public
asking the Czechs to help migrants and refugees. Caslavska said it would
be Europeans, not the migrants, who lose human dignity if they refuse
to help.
---
1:00 p.m.
The
U.N. refugee agency has praised Austria and Germany for deciding to
take in thousands of migrants who crossed the border from Hungary.
The agency said in a statement Saturday that "this is political leadership based on humanitarian values."
The
Geneva-based body also lauded civil society groups and ordinary
citizens in Austria and Germany for helping provide a welcome to people
in need.
The agency said that "a remarkable
outpouring of public response" is driving some governments to change
their stance on accepting migrants.
But it
said "the concentration of refugees and migrants in a small number of
countries willing to receive them is not a sustainable solution."
---
12:30 p.m.
German
police have searched the home of a 26-year-old Berlin man alleged to
have celebrated the drowning of a Syrian boy in a Facebook posting.
A spokeswoman for Berlin police says officers seized a computer and two cellphones during the raid early Saturday.
Valeska
Jakubowski told The Associated Press that the man, whose name was not
disclosed, was being investigated for "defaming the memory of the
deceased and incitement to hatred." If convicted he could face up to
three years in prison.
Police say the man
wrote "we are not mourning but celebrating it" above a picture of the
body of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned earlier this
week off the coast of Turkey.
German authorities are cracking down on far-right extremists using social media to stir up hatred of migrants
---
11:20 a.m.
The first train carrying 167 migrants from Austria to Germany has arrived in Munich.
Police
say the train arrived in the Bavarian capital at 10:25 a.m. (0825 GMT).
The migrants were among a larger group who had traveled by bus from
Hungary to Austria.
Federal police spokesman
Simon Hegewald told The Associated Press that a specially chartered
train from Salzburg, Austria, with several hundred migrants on board was
expected in Munich around noon.
---
11:15 a.m.
Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila says he is ready to open his house for refugees, and they can move in on Jan. 1, 2016.
Sipila
told Finnish broadcaster YLE Saturday morning that his family has a
house in central Finland that they no longer use since moving to
Helsinki.
Details of how to apply and how many people the house could accommodate weren't immediately available.
Last
month, Finland's interior ministry said it expects that up to 15,000
people would apply for asylum in the country - 10,000 higher than
previous estimates.
The leader of the Center Party, Sipila has been heading a center-right government since May.
---
9:00 a.m.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says there is no legal limit to the number of asylum seekers her country can receive.
Merkel
told the Funke consortium of newspapers in an interview published
Saturday that "the right to political asylum has no limits on the number
of asylum seekers."
She says that "as a
strong, economically healthy country we have the strength to do what is
necessary" and ensure every asylum seeker gets a fair hearing.
But
Merkel repeated her government's position that those migrants who stand
no realistic chance of getting permission to stay need to be returned
to their home country.
Germany has seen tens
of thousands of migrants arriving each month, many of them refugees
fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Eritrea and elsewhere.
---
7 a.m.
More
than 1,000 people from the Middle East and Asia, exhausted after
breaking away from police and marching for hours toward Western Europe,
have arrived before dawn Saturday on the border with Austria.
The
breakthrough became possible when Austria announced that it and Germany
would take the migrants on humanitarian grounds and to aid their EU
neighbor.
In jubilant scenes on the border,
hundreds of migrants bearing blankets over their shoulders to provide
cover from heavy rains walked off from buses and into Austria, where
volunteers at a roadside Red Cross shelter offered them hot tea and
handshakes of welcome.
Many collapsed in exhaustion on the floor, smiles on their faces.
No comments:
Post a Comment