Some Austrians cheered as busloads of migrants pulled up on their border with Hungary early Saturday — and weary passengers clutching children streamed toward them.
The passengers carried their meager belongings in backpacks as they exited the vehicles in the rain.
They walked on foot over the border to Nickelsdorf, Austria, where applause broke out among groups welcoming the convoys of buses with food, Austrian public TV ORF reported.
The Austrian Red Cross also provided medical supplies and warm blankets.
Between 2,500 and 3,000 people arrived in Nickelsdorf from Hungary in the first few hours of Saturday, State Police Director Hans Peter Doskozil told the Austria Press Agency.
It caps an emotional week for the migrants, who broke away from police and walked for hours before they got into buses.
Trains stopped
Chaotic scenes erupted Thursday as trains packed with Syrian refugees were halted at a station outside the Hungarian capital of Budapest in the latest setback for desperate families seeking to reach Western Europe.
Police gathered at the side of the track as the trains abruptly stopped at Bicske.
Families hoping to travel to Austria or ultimately Germany refused to get off despite suffocating heat and limited food.
Tents and desks had been set up near the station in what the migrants feared was a relocation camp to transfer them to a nearby refugee center. When the trains stopped, they set off on foot on the train tracks toward Austria.
Hungary sent buses to pick them up as throngs walked for hours in hopes of reaching the Austrian border about 100 miles away.
Days of waiting
The trains had left Budapest’s main Keleti station packed with weary migrants and refugees who’ve been waiting for days to travel onward to Western Europe.
In recent days, Keleti station has become a focal point of the crisis engulfing parts of Europe as an unprecedented wave of people — mostly refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — seek to reach Northern and Western Europe.
Hungary overwhelmed
Austrian and German officials agreed to allow thousands of migrants into their countries, Austrian Chancellor Werner Fayman said.
Hungary is more a transit point than a destination on a long journey to wealthier nations such as Austria and Germany, where they hope to claim asylum.
Under European law, those seeking asylum are approved in the country where they first registered, and most migrants prefer to file paperwork in Western European nations, which have better programs set up to help refugees.
Still, Hungary has been inundated with 140,000 asylum applications since January, and there have been about 2,000 new arrivals daily, U.N. refugee agency spokesman Babar Baloch said.
Hungarian authorities have said under EU legislation, they can’t allow people to travel without the proper documentation — a valid passport, a ticket and any necessary visas.
Hungarian railway operator MAV said Thursday it had decided not to run direct trains from Budapest toward Western Europe “for safety reasons.” International tickets will be accepted on domestic trains, it said.
‘The problem is a German problem’
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with other EU members Thursday to figure out how to cope with the emergency.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Belgium, alongside European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Orban said the situation was not of his country’s making.
“The problem is not a European problem; the problem is a German problem,” he said.
Germany’s government said last month it expected up to 800,000 asylum seekers to come this year — four times more than in 2014. But Orban said German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that they must be registered before leaving Hungary.
“All of them would like to go to Germany; our job is only to register them,” Orban said.
Pointing fingers
Without strict border controls, EU migrant quotas are “an invitation” for migrants to come, he said. “Turkey is a safe country, why don’t you stay there?” he said, adding that migrants who reach Serbia should also stay put.
Hungary’s right-wing government has faced criticism for erecting a barbed-wire fence along its more than 100-mile long border with Serbia in a bid to prevent migrants crossing illegally.
But Orban said his country was just trying to enforce EU rules.
“Don’t criticize Hungary for what is being done. Let Hungary do the job as it is written in the European regulations,” he said.
While European leaders struggle to come up with a coherent plan, the men, women and children caught up in the crisis continue to suffer.