With almost every new train, another batch of refugees arrive in Munich.
Tired, hungry and weak from the sweltering heat, they speak of a harrowing journey and the joy of finally making it.
It’s a different scene in Budapest.
Refugees hold up scraps of paper: “Help Syrian.” “Babies are tired.” They lie listlessly, waiting to board trains headed for Western Europe — but are denied by authorities. Hundreds wait.
Europe is in the midst of a deepening migrant crisis, and the response of governments have varied wildly.
On Thursday, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban meets with the European Union to figure out ways to cope with the emergency. The nation is a transit point for migrants trying to make their way north, and Hungary has responded by erecting a fence along its border with Serbia.
In Germany, the Interior Minister will address parliament after a planned asylum center was burned down. Germany’s government has been more accepting of asylum seekers, but has had to contend with xenophobic protests.
Police on Thursday arrested a suspect in an attack on about 40 asylum seekers at a shelter in Brandenburg earlier in the week.
And in France, migrants shut down Eurostar service overnight as they poured onto the tracks near Calais. Trains between London and Paris and London and Brussels had to be turned back.
Caught in the middle are the desperate men and women, with little children in tow, who have fled war-ravaged Syria or Iraq in overcrowded and often deadly voyages by land or sea.
Passports and visas, please
Tensions simmered at Keleti station in Budapest.
Hundreds of people who had expected to board trains to head on to Austria and Germany instead found Hungarian police officers barring their way. Some discussed their options, perhaps other possible routes to take to reach their destination.
They want to make their way to Western Europea where they hope to claim asylum.
The journey has been an arduous one.
“We have been here five days. No food, no sleep — no place to sleep, no anything,” one Syrian refugee at Keleti station told CNN on Tuesday.
He and his fellow travelers had train tickets but were not being allowed through, he said.
“The problem is the amount of migrants with the wrong papers,” said Reka Hegedus, a spokeswoman for the train station. “Obviously, even if they have tickets, it is not enough.”
Only those with proper documentation — a valid passport, a ticket and any necessary visas — were being allowed into the station, with police checking the papers of those seeking to enter.
“European regulations require that a person wishing to go on to Austria or Germany, for example, has the necessary documents,” a government statement said. “People at Budapest’s Keleti railway station demanding to be allowed free passage are demanding something which is not possible under European legislation.”
Flashpoint: Hungary
Hungary has come under increasing pressure from Western European countries to change its approach to the migrant crisis.
It has been erecting a barbed-wire fence along its more than 100-mile border with Serbia in a bid to prevent migrants crossing illegally as they make their way north.
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told CNN’s “The World Right Now” the lack of documentation was a key issue for authorities.
“That’s one major problem we have to face: that these people at least to the Hungarian border came without papers, or got rid of papers, and at the end of the day it’s basically impossible to determine whether they are telling the truth that they are coming from Syria or other war zones,” he said.
In an earlier statement, Kovacs called on Germany to clarify its position on allowing Syrian refugees into Germany from Hungary, “calling for order and legality to be restored at the borders of the European Union.”
Refugees flood into Germany
Even with the bottleneck in Hungary, migrants were still making their way to Germany, just not many by train.
Germany’s government said last month it expected up to 800,000 asylum seekers to come this year — four times more than in 2014.
At Munich’s main station, though, the arrival of refugees slowed to a trickle because of the restrictions in Budapest.
“It was so hard for us. It took a very long time,” said a woman from Afghanistan. “Especially in Hungary, it was very difficult to get through Hungary. We had almost no food and water.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday that her country — where some are opposed to taking in asylum seekers — must show “flexibility” when it comes to dealing with the crisis.
European Union member states agreed in July to take in more than 32,000 migrants to ease the burden on Italy and Greece, where the largest numbers have arrived. Another 8,000 should be allocated by the end of the year, said the European Union’s commissioner for migration.
For the most part, the public supports Merkel.
Local football clubs hoisted welcome banners over the weekend. Villages held “refugee welcome” parties for the newcomers. And a recent news poll estimated that 60% back Merkel’s warm welcome.
Varying sentiments
The European Union has been trying to find ways to ease the migrant pressure on Italy and Greece, where most migrants enter Europe.
Some countries are welcoming.
In Reykjavik, Icelanders called on the government to accept more refugees from Syria.
Others are reluctant.
One of them is Slovakia, which said last month that it only wanted to take in Christians because it has only a tiny Muslim community and it would be hard for new Muslim arrivals to integrate.
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain issued a statement Friday asking a special EU council to meet later this month to work on measures to better manage the influx of migrants.
