Europe's refugee crisis has been dubbed the worst since WWII with a record number of 107,500 asylum seekers crossing the EU's borders in July. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa to start a new life in Europe, but many meet a tragic end there.
11 September 2015
Close to 3,000 refugees crossed the border from Hungary into Austria near the town of Nickelsdorf, Friday. A temporary camp has been established in Nickelsdorf to house the refugees as they wait to be transported on to Vienna and Salzburg. Volunteers, including members of the Red Cross, were on hand to offer refreshments and information to those arriving.
Around 100 inmates returned to Roszke's prison after completing a section of the razor wire fence that runs along the Serbia-Hungary border, Friday. The fence was created to prevent refugees and migrants from crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary.
Police have detained a 53-year-old Italian man on suspicion of being complicit in the trafficking of 33 Syrian citizens, near the Hungarian town of Balatonfuzfo, Friday. The arrest comes as the Hungarian police are increasing their efforts to clamp down on both undocumented people crossing their territory and the alleged people smugglers, who may be assisting them.
The Red Cross was on hand to assist as hundreds of refugees and migrants approached the Hungarian-Austrian border in Hegyeshalom, Friday. One Red Cross official said groups of up to 150 people are 'constantly coming,' adding that he and his team are on hand to 'offer fresh drink and some information' to the incoming refugees and migrants.
10 September 2015
At least 7,000 people, including many children, tried to cross Greece’s northern border into Macedonia on Thursday, AP reported. Soaked by torrential rains and stuck in thick mud, they formed what Greek police called “the largest single wave of refugees they had seen so far.” Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said Macedonia will consider “some kind of a physical defense,” referring to the border fence Hungary plans to construct in order to control the tens of thousands of refugees invading the EU member state.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in Berlin, to discuss integration perspectives for asylum seekers through working opportunities, on Thursday.
Refugees who were stranded at Padborg train station finally managed to board trains to Copenhagen after the Danish government allowed them to travel free to Sweden on Danish trains, Thursday.
Thousands of refugees arrived at the small Macedonian village of Tabanovce, in the Kumanovo municipality, in order to cross the border with Serbia, on Thursday. They came from busses at the main Tabanovce station and continued their way on foot along a railway to the village of Miratovci on the Serbian side.
Germany's economy minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said on Thursday that the influx of refugees could end the country's skills shortage.
He added that companies should start training programs for asylum seekers in order to speed up the integration process, so that refugees become a benefit – rather than a burden – to the economy.
He described the expected arrival of an estimated 800,000 asylum seekers by the end of 2015 as “the biggest national, European challenge” since German reunification in 1990.
This video shows refugees waiting in the rain at a makeshift camp in Roszke as buses arrive to take them to different reception centers across Hungary.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says action concerning a European repartition of arriving refugees is needed "very, very fast now."
"The challenge is big at the moment," she said after visiting a school for refugee children in Berlin.
She added that she is "very impressed" by the teachers' work, "especially what relates to German and integration courses."
Danish police will no longer try to stop migrants and refugees from transiting through the country to get to Sweden and other Nordic countries, Denmark's police chief said.
"We can't detain foreigners who do not want to seek asylum [in Denmark]," police chief Jens Henrik Hoejbjerg said Thursday, as quoted by AP. "Therefore, there is no other option than to let them go, and we cannot prevent them from traveling wherever they want."
Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen gave his "full support" to the police decision after briefing political parties on the "extraordinary situation."
Hundreds of refugees boarded a train bound for Dusseldorf at Munich's main station on Thursday. The train was filled to capacity, with many people having to sit on the floors and in the corridors.
Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders has called the wave of refugees arriving in Europe an “Islamic invasion” during a parliamentary debate.
"Masses of young men in their twenties with beards singing 'Allahu Akbar' across Europe. It's an invasion that threatens our prosperity, our security, our culture and identity," he said.
Austria's national railway operator says it is halting train traffic to and from Hungary due to “massive overburdening.”
08 September 2015
Poland's President Andrzej Duda said he was against migrant quotas that were proposed for EU member states.
"In Europe the talk is all the time about fighting the results, and little on how to liquidate the reasons. Europe is in a kind of a closed circle," Duda said.
One man was injured after scuffles broke out between police and asylum seekers near the village of Roszke in southern Hungary. Local police officers pushed the crowd, who were desperate to board a bus to take them from a temporary refugee camp to a nearby reception center.
Frustrated asylum seekers could be heard chanting "Allahu Akbar!" while a woman with crying children attempted to board a bus. The Hungarian government has sent several buses to the site on Tuesday, but only one has departed with the migrants so far, Ruptly reported.
It would be a mistake for EU to take in all the asylum seekers fleeing the atrocities of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told RTL radio.
"It's very difficult, but if all these refugees come to Europe or elsewhere, then Daesh [the Arabic name for IS] has won the game…The objective is that the Middle East remains the Middle East, that means a region of diversity where there are Christians, Yazidis, etc," he said.
About 7,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Macedonia on Monday, UNHCR said, adding that about 30,000 Syrians are currently on Greek islands, with 20,000 of them on Lesbos Island.
"Discussions in Europe this week are taking on even greater urgency because it obviously cannot be a German solution to a European problem," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said at briefing in Geneva.
She added that at least 200,000 asylum seekers need “relocation in Europe countries.”
07 September 2015
Hungarian border police have deployed pepper spray against a group of migrants trying to break into the country through the Serbian border, near the settlement of Roszke. Reuters reports that the migrants were being escorted to a transit camp when some began to break away, and eyewitnesses said that a group was able to successfully fend off the police.
Hungary's Defence Minister Csaba Hende has resigned following an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the response to the refugee crisis. Hende will be replaced by Istvan Simicsko, a member of prime minister Viktor Orban right-wing Fidesz party.
The Libyan coast guard has saved over a hundred migrants, who were trying to reach Europe. “We rescued 121 migrants from a pneumatic boat, whose engine had packed up, 10 kilometers from Garabulli,” a coast guard spokesperson said as cited by TASS. The rescued people, citizens of Arab and African states, were transferred to a temporary accommodation center in Tripoli, 60 kilometers from Garabulli.
The Czech Republic is sticking to its position against setting mandatory quotas to redistribute some of the asylum-seekers flooding Europe around the European Union, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on Monday.
"We will try to convince our EU partners not to introduce any compulsory, permanent mechanisms of allocating refugees," he told reporters after meeting his Austrian and Slovak counterparts in Bratislava. "We want to contribute on a voluntary basis."
The EU executive has drawn up a new set of national quotas under which 160,000 asylum-seekers should be relocated from Italy, Greece and Hungary, an EU source said earlier on Monday. (Reuters)
British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the UK will resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the course of this Parliament.
At least two thirds of about 15,000-18,000 asylum seekers who are stranded in “miserable” conditions on the Greek Island of Lesbos will be transported to the mainland in next five days, Greece’s migration minister told state ERT1 TV.
Five police officers were slightly injured in a riot that broke out at a migrants’ detention center in Valencia, Spain, local media reported on Monday. While trying to escape, up to 50 asylum seekers attacked officers.
The disturbance broke out on Sunday night after a guard was attacked. The migrants stole his keys and tried to flee, reportedly throwing rocks at law enforcers called to stop them. The authorities fired rubber bullets. Migrants also smashed furniture and set fire to mattresses, so firefighters had to be called.
According to Spanish media, most migrants and refugees at the detention center are from sub-Saharan Africa. Reportedly, they had earlier complained about living conditions.
France will take in 24,000 refugees over two years under an EU plan, the Elysee Palace said.
Those who are now trying to cross the south-eastern border of the EU are immigrants looking for better life, not refugees, said Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"If they want to continue on from Hungary, it's not because they are in danger, it's because they want something else," he said, adding that such a stream of refugees would put a massive burden on Europe.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann says that the country plans to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary into Austria and Germany.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation," Faymann said. "Now we have to move step by step away from emergency measures towards normality, in conformity with the law and dignity."
06 September 2015
More than 2,000 British people volunteered to host refugees in their own homes ahead of an expected national government decision to give asylum to around 10,000 people from Syria, as reported by the Telegraph. The list of potential refugee hosts includes Labour leadership contender, Yvette Cooper and Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. “It has been a huge tribute to people's compassion across the country that we have seen such a big change, that is what has changed the Government's mind, that is what has shifted the Prime minister's decision on this,” said Yvette Cooper. Nicola Sturgeon claimed she “would be absolutely happy to do that as part of a bigger, wider, organized approach".
The head of the UN refugee agency Antonio Guterres criticized the European asylum system as “dysfunctional” claiming at the same time that the refugee crisis would be “manageable” if all the countries cooperated and worked together. "The European asylum system is deeply dysfunctional, it works badly. Some countries make the necessary effort and the effort of many others is nearly non-existant," he told French TV and radio stations.
“It is a very serious problem… but not one of the biggest crises. It is a manageable crisis if everyone agrees on a joint action plan,” he added. He also emphasized that the annual rise in the number of people displaced by conflicts indicates “an increase in conflicts in the world and that old conflicts have no solutions.”
Amid the worsening refugee crisis, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French right-wing National Front party, accused Germany of seeking to hire “slaves” and lower wages by inviting thousands of refugees and migrants, Reuters reports.
"Germany probably thinks its population is moribund, and it is probably seeking to lower wages and continue to recruit slaves through mass immigration," Le Pen told supporters at a meeting in the French city of Marseille. "Germany seeks not only to rule our economy, it wants to force us to accept hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers," she added emphasizing that France had neither the means nor the will to accept “the world’s misery.”
Thousands took to the streets in the Swedish capital of Stockholm on Sunday, expressing their support to the refugees. More than 30,000 people registered to attend the "Refugees Welcome" demonstration in a Sodermalm square, Sweden's branch of The Local reported.
The rally was joined by Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who called on all Europeans to help the refugees, and for EU officials "to find solutions" instead of "pointing fingers."
"We need to decide right now what kind of Europe we are going to be. My Europe takes in refugees. My Europe doesn't build walls," Sweden's PM said.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has said it was time to phase out extraordinary measures allowing the unimpeded inflow of thousands of refugees from Hungary to Austria and Germany, Reuters reports.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation. Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures towards normality, in conformity with the law and dignity," he said in a statement on Sunday after "intensive talks" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Chile is looking into the possibility of taking in dozens of refugee families fleeing from war-torn Syria, the country’s foreign minister, Heraldo Munoz said, as reported by the Chilean daily La Tercera. "It's a situation that is being evaluated. The government is deeply worried about this humanitarian situation," Heraldo Mundoz said. The Chilean government is considering a plan proposed by a former minister of Syrian descent that calls for hosting at least 50 to 100 refugee families, the paper reported.
Dr. Zoe Fritz, who works as a medical consultant at the UK's Cambridge University Hospital, has set up an online database of people willing to house refugees. More than 2,000 people have offered up their homes, according to the Press Association.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the country is prepared to accept more refugees.
He tweeted earlier on Sunday that Australia would consult with "international partners" regarding the refugee crisis.
One Direction singer Harry Styles has tweeted his support for the Save the Children campaign, urging fans to welcome refugees.
Pope Francis has called on every European parish to host one refugee family each.
"I appeal to the parishes, the religious communities, the monasteries and sanctuaries of all Europe to...take in one family of refugees," he said after his Sunday address.
He added that two parishes in the Vatican will take in a family in the coming days. The comment was met with applause from the crowd in St. Peter's Square.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that while Israel is not indifferent to refugees fleeing Syria, the country cannot accommodate them.
“We have conscientiously treated thousands of wounded from the fighting in Syria, and we have helped them rebuild their lives," Netanyahu said at the opening of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting. “But Israel is a very small country, with neither demographic or geographic depth, and therefore we must control our borders.”
The country will begin building a security barrier on Israel's eastern border with Jordan.
“We will not allow Israel to be flooded with illegal immigrants, work-seekers and terrorist activists,” Netanyahu said.
The comments come just one day after opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) called on the government to absorb refugees from Syria.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to discuss the refugee crisis with her coalition partners on Sunday.
Authorities estimate that up to 800,000 people could apply for asylum in Germany by the end of the year.
Police have used batons to beat back a demonstration by some 300 refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos. The protesters were chanting “Athena, Athena” as they tried to leave the port area. Several people were injured in the clashes, with one taken away unconscious by an ambulance, AP reports.
The refugees say that local authorities are not processing them quickly enough so they can continue their journey towards western Europe. They also complain that authorities are not offering them any help, and that they are quickly running out of money.
The clashes between refugees and police were the third in just three days. The Sunday demonstration was led by Afghans.
Several dozen French mayors have offered to house refugees, and have scheduled a national meeting to organize housing on September 12, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Sunday.
Authorities in Cyprus say they have rescued 114 people believed to be refugees fleeing Syria, after their fishing boat issued a distress call some 46 miles off the country's southern coast, AP reports.
The passengers included 60 men, 30 children, 19 women, and five infants. They have been transferred to the southern port of Larnaca for health and identity checks.
Three men, including a 28-year-old believed to be the boat's captain, have been arrested and are being questioned.
05 September 2015
A newborn migrant boy has been pronounced dead by Greek doctors on the island of Samos on Saturday, Reuters reports. He arrived on the neighboring island of Agathonisi alongside his parents in a boat from Turkey, and was later taken to the Samos hospital.
The first large group of migrants and refugees has arrived via special trains to the German city of Munich. Around 2,000 of the potential 7,000 Syrian refugees expected to enter the country on Saturday have reached their final desired destination through Hungary and Austria, Reuters reported.
The first group of asylum seekers was reportedly warmly welcomed at a train station with sweets and applause. Arabic-speaking interpreters were helping refugees at the emergency registration centers, according to Munich police.
European solidarity on EU migrant quota oscillates wildly:
Amnesty International has welcomed the initiative to clear Hungary's humanitarian traffic jam, saying it was “a relief to finally see a sliver of humanity,” AP reported on Saturday.
The human rights watchdog has praised the effort following "endless examples of shameful treatment by governments of refugees and migrants in Europe," AP quoted its deputy director for Europe Gauri van Gulik as saying. Yet, the crisis is "far from over," Amnesty's official said, adding that "the pragmatic and humane approach ... should become the rule, not the exception.''
‘The migrant crisis could be predicted since the 1980’s,’ the CEO of the Vienna Center for Societal Security, Reinhard Kreissl, told RT. ‘But nobody took it seriously, even after wars in Syria and Iraq politicians ignored it.
What you had in Europe was a very anti-migrant, anti-refugee attitude on public discourse. But in the last two weeks we seen a change in attitude,’ he added.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the country will be able to maintain fiscal discipline and avoid tax rises, despite the unprecedented migrant influx.
"We cannot just say 'Because we have a difficult task now, the balanced budget or the issue of debt are no longer important'," Merkel said in her weekly podcast.
An expected tax surplus could give Merkel an extra €5 billion to spend this year, which could to directed to accommodating and supporting more than 800,000 people expected to arrive in the country by the end of 2015.
Thousands of refugees who had spent days - some up to a week - sleeping rough in Budapest finally arrived at the small Hungarian border town of Hegyeshalom in the early hours of Saturday. From there, many boarded trains and busses heading to Vienna.
More than 6,500 refugees have reached Austria by midday GMT, of which 2,200 are headed to Germany, Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told Reuters.
PM Viktor Orban says Hungary will send army to its southern border with Serbia after September15 if the parliament gives green light, Reuters reports.
"The big changes will come after Sept. 15... and we'll bring the border under control step by step," Orban told a news conference. "We'll send in the police, then, if we get approval from parliament, we'll deploy the military.
"It's not 150,000 (refugees coming) that some want to divide according to quotas, it's not 500,000, a figure that I heard in Brussels, it's millions, then tens of millions, because the supply of immigrants is endless," he said.
Several hundred refugees left Budapest's Keleti railway station on foot on Saturday and headed towards Vienna, a day after about a 1,000 people set off on a similar journey, Reuters reports.
Germany is set to receive up to 10,000 refugees during the day, after securing permission from Hungary to allow refugees to cross its borders. "We don't have reliable figures yet, but we are expecting between 5,000 and 10,000 refugees today," Stefan Sonntag, the police spokesman, told Reuters. Measures to accommodate an increasing number of the displaced are being worked out on a continuing basis. Austria will be sending a train to Munich with several hundred people on Saturday afternoon.
Prime Minister Juha Sipila of Finland said on Saturday he would offer his own home in Kempele, northern Finland to asylum seekers, Reuters reports citing the PM’s interview with national broadcaster YLE. Sipila has called on all Finns to show solidarity with the refugees.
4,000 refugees have crossed the Austrian border, according to local police, cited by Reuters. The number is expected to more than double.
"We estimate that around 4,000 have arrived - and I don't think that is the end of it," said Helmut Marban, spokesman for the police in the province of Burgenland.
After seeing the pictures of a Syrian toddler washed ashore in Turkey this week, Argentina's cabinet chief said that his nation is willing to welcome more refugees.
"When you do something like this, it is a very honest act that springs from affection and solidarity," Anibal Fernandez said, adding that Argentina eased the entrance of Syrians through a program which begun last year.
The first buses carrying refugees from the Hungarian capital have arrived at the Austrian border, Reuters reports.
Budapest's Keleti railway station has emptied after hundreds of refugees, who sheltered there for days, boarded dozens of buses which they hope will take them to the Austrian border.
Austria’s Red Cross is expecting up to 1,500 refugees to arrive in their reception center at the Hungarian border overnight.
“We got an indication from our authorities that we can expect between 800 to 1,500 people,” said Thomas Horvath, spokesman for the Red Cross in the Austrian province of Burgenland on the Hungarian border. “We are getting beds, shelter, food and hot drinks ready for them, and there will also be medical care available if needed.”
04 September 2015
The tired refugee families, who came under attack by football hooligans earlier in the day, are hurriedly packing their belongings to get a seat on a bus to their “new life,” reports RT’s Daniel Hawkins.
Over a dozen busses arrived at central Budapest early on Friday night, apparently to take hundreds of refugees stuck in Hungary to the Austrian border, RT correspondent Daniel Hawkins reported from the scene.
“There has been a surge in activity in that tent city where refugees have been living now for some time. You can see them exhausted, but many of them are actually happy. They believe that these busses will take them on to the border, where they hope to move to Austria and to Germany,” said Hawkins.
The Hungarian Prime Minister's chief of staff Janos Lazar tried to reach Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann by phone to notify him about the busses that will take refugees to a Hungarian town on the Austrian border. The chancellor is currently unavailable.
Europe should manage the unprecedented refugee & migrant flow from the Middle East and Africa, respecting people’s rights and their dignity, since this is one of the core principles Europe stands on, Europe's Economic Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said on Friday.
This came as a response to Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban who warned on Thursday that Christianity may disappear from Europe due to the influx of asylum seekers.
“Our answer must be in line with our history and our values, in line with what Europe is about,” Moscovici told reporters during a break in talks with world financial leaders in Turkey.
“To be European means to care about humanity and to care about human rights.
“When the world and Europe face such a drama, the answer should never be nationalistic. Never to close borders, never to renounce our values. Never,” Moscovici said.
Hungary is ready to offer busses to the refugees on the M1 highway near the town of Bicske and at the Keleti train station in Budapest to take them to the Austrian border, the Prime Minister's chief of staff Janos Lazar says. People are beside themselves with excitement. The position of Austrian government on the decision is unknown, Lazar added.
Around 300 newly arrived migrants and refugees continued to wait for their turn to officially apply for asylum in Germany at the offices of LaGeSo (State Office for Health and Social Affairs) on Turmstrasse 21 in Berlin, Friday.
Peace and order have been restored in the Hungarian town of Bicske, where a stand-off between riot police and migrants took place earlier this day, local journalist Mariann Őry reports.
US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has urged the world to do more to assist the refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East.
"The entire world should come together. It should not be just one or two countries, or not just Europe and the United States," Clinton told MSNBC.
"We should do our part, as should the Europeans, but this is a broader global crisis," she continued.
Four Syrians have been formally charged over the deaths of at least 12 people, including a three-year-old boy, whose boat capsized as they tried to reach the Greek island of Kos, a local police chief told Reuters.
They are charged with smuggling migrants and causing multiple deaths by “conscious negligence.”
Clashes broke out at Budapest train station on Friday as football hooligans pelted refugees with smoke bombs & fireworks; refugees responded with plastic bottles & shoes.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia, which oppose an EU-wide quota on accepting refugees, have proposed creating a rail corridor linking Hungary to Germany.
“The Czech Republic and Slovakia can create a rail corridor for Syrian refugees travelling from Hungary to Germany, if Berlin and Budapest agree," Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said at a joint press conference in Prague.
Migrants at Roszke camp in Hungary have broken barriers at the premises and are clashing with riot police, a witness told Reuters.
According to the Russian president, the main flaw of Western foreign policy is the imposition of their own standards worldwide without taking into account the historical, religious, national and cultural characteristics of particular regions.
The “Refugee City” program in Spain is working to create a network of cities to assist refugees, stating that Spain should take in more migrants than the 2,739 that the country's government has agreed on.
The program was launched when Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau announced the creation of a register of people who could take in or help refugees.
Other Spanish cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have followed suit. Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena vowed to dedicate 10 million euros to the project.
Migrants on a Hungarian train in the town of Bicske have agreed to end their stand-off with riot police. They have begun to voluntarily leave the train, Reuters reports.
Police said the refugees would be transported to a camp in Bicske.
After meeting with her counterparts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said that EU member states should make their own sovereign decisions regarding the refugee crisis.
"I think our tackling of the immigration problem has to be reasonable and also countries have to make sovereign decisions on the level of their exposure as well as engagement," she told reporters.
The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia have rejected the notion of a quota system for accepting migrants.
The leaders said the EU's approach should include “preserving the voluntary nature of EU solidarity measures.” They added that “any proposal leading to introduction of mandatory and permanent quota for solidarity measures would be unacceptable.”
A Pakistani migrant in Hungary has died after falling on train tracks while fleeing police, Hungarian state television has reported.
German customs officials have seized packages of Syrian passports being sent through the mail, the country's Finance Ministry said on Friday, as reported by The Telegraph. Both genuine and fake passports are believed to have been discovered in the parcels.
Italy, France, and Germany have called for a European system to repatriate more migrants who fail to qualify for asylum, and to improve external border controls, Reuters reports.
In a letter to the European Union's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the three governments called for new rules to end a patchwork of national policies.
"A more efficient asylum system...goes hand in hand with a more efficient repatriation policy of irregular migrants," said the letter.
Missiles and bottles are being thrown at the Budapest railway station, according to the BBC.
Syrian refugees are shouting: “Freedom, freedom, we want peace.”
Refugees on the Greek island of Kos were attacked early Friday by "thugs" with bats, telling them to "go back to their countries," according to Amnesty International.
The organization's staff say they witnessed a "violent attack on refugees" by a group of between 15-25 people, adding that riot police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Local police have denied they used tear gas, but said pepper spray had been used earlier to break up a crowd of around 1,000 people who gathered outside the police station after a scuffle broke out between Syrian and Iraqi migrants.
The Hungarian parliament has introduced emergency anti-migration laws. The laws include three-year jail terms for people climbing over the newly constructed razor-wire fence on the border with Serbia, as well as new border "transit zones" to hold asylum seekers while their applications are processed.
The government has also declared a "state of crisis caused by mass immigration." This allows the police and army to assist in registering asylum applications, as well as operate detention facilities in registration camps.
Clashes erupted at the Keleti train station in Budapest, as football hooligans pelted refugees with smoke bombs, reported Daniel Hawkins, RT’s correspondent on the scene.
Some refugees formed a human chain between riot police and their comrades to protect them, he said. The crowd was chanting “Fascists! Fascists!” at the football hooligans, who were swiftly detained, he added.
The UK will increase humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees by £100 million (US$152 million), Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday.
"Today I can announce that we will provide a further £100 million, taking our total contribution to over £1 billion. That is the UK's largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis," he said during his visit to Spain. "£60 million of this additional funding will go to help Syrians still in Syria. The rest will go to neighboring countries, to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, where Syrian refugees now account for one-quarter of the population."
Spain is set to create an inter-ministerial committee to aid the government in facilitating the solution to the asylum-seeker crisis, Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said after a meeting of the Council of Ministers on Friday.
The commission will coordinate the actions of seven ministries, including Interior, Foreign, Defense, Health and Social Services, Justice and Education. The commission, headed by Deputy PM, is set to meet for the first time on Monday.
De Santamaría did not give the number of refugees Spain is ready to accept, but assumed it will be greater than 2,749 - the figure set by the government before the summer.
A group of around 500 asylum seekers, marching on a Hungarian motorway towards the Austrian border, has broken through a police barricade. They continued on the main highway connecting Budapest and Vienna, a Reuters eyewitness said. Scores of families, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan, left Budapest's Keleti railway station early on Friday after Hungarian authorities refused to let them travel to Austria by train. Many of the people held up pictures of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and chanted "Germany, Germany."
The head of the UN's refugee agency, Antonio Guterres, will step down at the end of this year and won't seek a renewal of his mandate as high commissioner for refugees, his spokeswoman has stated. "He served over 10 years. His mandate was already extended by six months. It was originally supposed to end in June," Melissa Fleming explained. Earlier on Friday, Guterres had said that EU states must adopt "fundamental changes" in policy to take in more refugees. He warned that the EU's response to the current crisis would be a "defining moment" for the entire bloc, noting that a divided EU would benefit only smugglers and traffickers.
Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan nationals were among the 71 people found dead in an abandoned truck in Austria last week. However, none of the bodies have been identified, Austrian police said on Friday.
"We found a total of 17 travel documents. Based on these we have been able to determine that this was a mixed group of people. Syrian nationals, Iraqis and also Afghans are likely to have been on board," Hans Peter Doskozil, police chief for the province of Burgenland, told a news conference.
Finland's government has doubled its estimate for the number of asylum seekers that will reach the country this year, following an influx in the past few days, Reuters reports.
The number is now at 30,000 – compared to just 3,600 asylum seekers last year.
Many refugees have entered the country through Sweden, crossing a land border in Lapland, according to the Interior Ministry.
The Hungarian police say 2,300 asylum seekers remain in the Roszke reception camp, and are threatening to break out if their demands are not met within two hours. It's not clear what those are.
Hundreds of refugees have begun walking from Budapest's eastern railway station, saying they are heading to Austria, Reuters reports.
The crowd began walking after they were unable to board carriages, as Hungary has canceled all trains to Western Europe from Budapest.
Serbia, as an EU candidate country, is prepared to take in a quota of refugees, Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said.
"As a country that wants to be a member of the EU, this is a good time to show we are prepared for that task," Stefanovic said, speaking in English.
He expressed concern at the effects of planned Hungarian measures to seal the country's border to migrants crossing from Serbia.
"This is not helpful in terms of stopping migration," he told Reuters in the Macedonian lakeside town of Ohrid. "The only question is how we deal with this and how we are prepared to accept them."
The Hungarian parliament has passed a law to set up transit zones near its border, raising the punishment for illegally crossing the border fence.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have written to EU leaders calling for a "sustainable and binding" mechanism for resettling refugees across all member states, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said. He told a news conference that the letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk featured a number of concrete proposals on how Europe can tackle the escalating migrant crisis. These include the quick establishment of "hotspot" reception centers in Italy and Greece, Reuters reported.
"Closely linked to the establishment of these reception centers is the question of how refugees can be distributed, based on the principle of solidarity, across all member states. We urgently need a sustainable and binding mechanism for the resettlement of these people," Seibert said.
About 200 unregistered migrants trying to board a ship on the Greek island of Lesbos have scuffled with police and coastguard officials, a Coastguard spokesman told Reuters. Police used teargas to disperse the crowd, a reporter on the scene for the Greek news channel ANT1 said.
The migrants were "pushed back by the police and the Coastguard," Nikos Lagkadianos said.
About 300 asylum seekers have escaped from a Hungarian refugee reception camp in Roszke, near the Serbian border, Reuters reported citing local police.
Five people were injured when a fire broke out at a refugee shelter in the town of Heppenheim in the West German state of Hesse, German police said on Friday. Over 60 refugees from Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Ethiopia were accommodated in the three-story residential building. "One resident who tried to save himself by jumping out of a window from the second floor was seriously injured," police spokeswoman Christiane Kobus said in a statement, adding that four people were slightly affected by smoke poisoning. The fire was extinguished quickly, police said. An investigation into its cause has been launched. According to initial findings, the blaze started "for unknown reasons."
RT contributor Richard Sudan reports from Budapest as politicians struggle to find common ground on the EU migrant crisis:
“I think the crisis was absolutely expected,” President Vladimir Putin told journalists at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, discussing the current refugee crisis in the EU.
READ MORE: EU refugee crisis ‘absolutely expected’ – Putin
“We in Russia, and me personally a few years ago, said it straight that pervasive problems would emerge, if our so-called Western partners continue maintaining their flawed ... foreign policy, especially in the regions of the Muslim world, Middle East, North Africa, which they pursue to date,” said Putin.
The Syrian father who lost his wife and two toddlers to the waters of the Mediterranean collapsed in anguish as he identified their bodies.
Three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his five-year-old brother Ghalib, and their mother, Rehanna, drowned as they attempted to cross from Turkey into Greece on Wednesday.
The photograph of the boy's tiny body lying face-down on the beach in Turkey appeared in newspapers around the world, prompting both sympathy and outrage worldwide.
Aylan's five-year-old brother Galip and mother Rehan, 35, were among 12 people, including further children, who died after two boats capsized while their passengers were trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.
Now Abdullah Kurdi, 40, is preparing to take them back to their home town of Kobani.
"We want the world's attention on us, so that they can prevent the same from happening to others. Let this be the last," he told reporters.
The 40-year-old father, in a statement to police obtained by the Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, said that he tried to arrange for smugglers to take him and his family to Greece but their efforts were fruitless. Then he and other fellow migrants found a boat which eventually started to take in water, and when people stood up in panic, it capsized.
"I was holding my wife's hand. My children slipped away from my hands. We tried to hold on to the boat," he said in the statement. "Everyone was screaming in pitch darkness. I couldn't make my voice heard to my wife and kids."
03 September 2015
On Thursday, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini used some harsh rhetoric when asked by a journalist in Luxembourg to comment on the photo of a three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in an effort to find asylum in Europe.
“I am a little bit fed up of the fact that politicians are called to react emotionally. Our job, as I said, is to take decisions rationally, being consistent and coherent with our emotions,” she responded.
“So I think, I'm sure, all of us are shocked seeing that kind of picture but I expect not only for us to be shocked but also for all of us to be responsible enough to take the consequential decisions that are needed."
Hansjoerg Mueller, member of the Alternative for Germany party (Alternative für Deutschland) told RT that human tragedies, like the one with a Syrian 3-year-old boy found on the Turkish coast, is misused by Western media and politicians. ‘The migrant crisis will lead to split of the EU much quicker than predicted by economists,’ he added.
Hungarian authorities have suspended all trains going to and from Budapest, according to statements from the Polish, Czech, and Slovak railways.
Travelers will need to take local services to complete their journey to the country’s capital. Those services will depart from the town of Szob, near the Slovakian border.
Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has offered to buy an island off Greece or Italy to help hundreds of thousands of refugees.
"Greece or Italy sell me an island, I'll call its independence and host the migrants and provide jobs for them building their new country," he wrote on Twitter.
He told AFP that there are “dozens of islands which are deserted and could accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban says Hungary would build a barrier at the Croatian border if migrants began flowing that way, Reuters reports.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann says he is summoning the Hungarian ambassador for talks over the refugee crisis in the country.
"The Geneva Human Rights Convention must be respected by all EU states," Faymann said in a statement. "Asylum is a human right that applies in all EU states."
"People who are fleeing war and persecution have a right to asylum and to be treated respectfully."
"We can only solve this great humanitarian challenge together in a strong Europe - with humanity and solidarity."
During a phone call with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban discussed the refugee crisis at the country's borders with Serbia and Macedonia, Orban's press chief Bertalan Havasi told MTI.
Orban reportedly informed Vucic about new legislation on border controls due to soon be passed by the Hungarian parliament. The laws would allow for police and army units to be dispatched to the border as of September 15.
The Hungarian prime minister met with European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Brussels on Thursday.
"We Hungarians are full of fear, people in Europe are full of fear because they see that the European leaders, among them the prime ministers, are not able to control the situation," Orban said after the meeting.
"I came here to inform the president that Hungary did everything possible in order to keep the regulations. We create just now in the Hungarian parliament a new package of regulations, we set up a physical barrier and all these together can provide a new situation in Hungary and in Europe from 15 September. Now we have one week of preparation time,” he added.
French President Francois Hollande is currently hosting a meeting on the refugee crisis at Elysee Palace in Paris.
Greece's caretaker government is expected to ask the European Union for about €700 million (US$776 million) to build infrastructure to shelter the thousands of refugees arriving on its territory each day, Reuters reports.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to propose a large increase in the number of refugees to whom EU countries would be required to give temporary refuge, stating that it should be raised to 160,000 from the current 40,000, The Financial Times reports.
A petition titled "Accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugee migrants in the UK" has reached more than 200,000 signatures - more than the amount needed for Parliament to consider the issue for debate.
"We can't allow refugees who have risked their lives to escape horrendous conflict and violence to be left living in dire, unsafe and inhumane conditions in Europe. We must help," the authors of the petition write.
Prime Minister David Cameron has blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad and Islamic State militants for the “terrible scenes” on Europe’s beaches as the refugee crisis worsens.
Canada's Conservative government has come under fire following reports that the family of a Syrian toddler whose body washed up on a Turkish beach had been trying to emigrate to Canada.
Local media reported that Canada's Citizenship and Immigration Minister, Chris Alexander, is suspending his reelection campaign to investigate why the country rejected the family's request.
Video footage shows a desperate refugee pushing his wife and child onto railway tracks after police would not allow the family to continue their journey towards western Europe.
German football team Arminia Bielefeld has given out 500 free tickets to refugees, Die Welt reports.
"We are thrilled with the overwhelming demand. We wish the refugees and their companions a wonderful football afternoon in the Schueco Arena," said managing director Gerrit Meinke.
All trains bound for Western Europe from Budapest's Keleti station have been canceled.
Respoding to the emotional image of a young Syrian boy whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey Wednesday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has tweeted: "He had a name: Aylan Kurdi. It is urgent to act. Urgent European mobilisation is needed."
British Prime Minister David Cameron says the images of a young Syrian boy whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey on Wednesday "moved him."
"As a father, I felt deeply moved," he said of the image of Aylan Kurdi.
"Britain is a moral nation and we will fulfill our moral responsibilities," Cameron added, but declined to give further details.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said this morning that Europe could not just "get emotional" about the migrant crisis, but had to act decisively.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Europe of being "party to crime" when a refugee dies.
"European countries, which turned the Mediterranean Sea - the cradle of ancient civilisations - into a migrant cemetery are party to the crime that takes place when each refugee loses their life," he said during a speech in Ankara.
French President Francois Hollande says "these men and women, with their families, are fleeing war and persecution. They need international protection."
"Europe must protect those for whom she is the last hope."
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has urged world leaders to bring about the end of the Syrian civil war.
The situation in Syria is the cause of a large part of the problems we are currently having in Europe," Rajoy told COPE radio.
"I am not in a position to say if it is a good or a bad thing to use ground forces," he continued. "Settling the situation in Syria is of capital importance."
France and Germany "have announced joint proposals to organize the reception of refugees and a fair distribution in Europe" as well as "converging standards to strengthen the European asylum system," French President Francois Hollande said in a statement.
Bayern Munich football team has announced a "training camp" for asylum seekers. It will provide children and youths with German lessons and meals.
At the next 12 home games, the players will enter the stadium holding the hand of a German child and an asylum seeker.
In addition, the team will donate one million euros from a friendly game to asylum projects.
"FC Bayern sees it as its social responsibility to help the refugees, needy children, women and men to support them and to accompany them in Germany," said club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
France and Germany have agreed on joint initiative on the refugee crisis, Paris has announced.
Speaking from a press conference in Switzerland, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has addressed Hungary's assertion that the migrant crisis is a "German problem."
She says that all countries are responsible for offering protection to those fleeing war and persecution, as part of the UN convention on refugees.
Using batons, Hungarian officers have pushed journalists out of a station where a migrant train is stranded, Reuters reports.
Police have declared the station in the town of Bicske an "operation zone."
Groups of 30-40 migrants are protesting at the station, refusing to go to a nearby reception camp.
European Council President Donald Tusk says it would be "unforgivable if Europe splits into advocates of containment symbolized by the Hungarian fence and advocates of full openness."
"Fair distribution of at least 100,000 refugees among the EU states is what we need today," he added.
"If leaders do not demonstrate good will, solidarity will become an empty slogan and will be replaced by political blackmail, divisions and a new blame game."
Police in the Czech Republic have reportedly said they will stop writing numbers on the hands of refugees. It comes after widespread criticism from human rights groups, who compared the practice to the tattoos given to concentration camp prisoners in World War II.
Turkish police have arrested four suspected traffickers after 12 migrants drowned while trying to reach a Greek island. A three-year-old boy was among those killed.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to hold a press conference later on Thursday, during which she is expected to address the migrant crisis.
Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) chairman, Sigmar Gabriel, has spoken out about the country's immigration policies, saying that both an immigration law and a focus on refugee protection are needed.
"Immigration law spells out which people Germany needs to help us build the country. Refugees can also make a big contribution to this but primarily we want to give them protection from war, hardship, persecution - even if they cannot provide us with skilled labor," Gabriel said in a video podcast released Tuesday, as quoted by Deutsche Welle.
"We must not act as if the refugees are only allowed to come if they can help fill our need for skilled labor," he added.
People in Munich traveled to the city's main train station, providing donations for arriving refugees.
Munich police have tweeted that they have enough supplies for the day, thanking citizens for their support.
Following talks with the president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, Orban noted the current refugee crisis was not an EU problem, but rather "a German problem," as he put it.
According to Orban, none of the migrants want to "stay in Hungary."
"All of them want to go to Germany," the Hungarian prime minister said.
RT contributor Richard Sudan reports from Budapest:
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stated that by mid-September, Budapest should have a package of regulations in place to tackle the growing number of migrants.
"We Hungarians are full of fear, people in Europe are full of fear because they see that the European leaders, among them prime ministers, are not able to control the situation," Orban said on Thursday, after a meeting with European Parliament President Martin Schulz in Brussels.
On Thursday, Hungarian police allowed hundreds of migrants inside Budapest's main railway station, but then the authorities canceled all trains to Western Europe, causing chaos. Hundreds of people took a waiting train by storm, trying to push kids through open windows, hoping they would be allowed to continue their journey west to Austria, Germany and further afield.
Hungarian police have stopped the first train bound for the town of Sopron near the Austrian border, ordering migrants off at Bicske, where Hungary has a migrant reception center, Reuters reported. All the other passengers got off and boarded a replacement train on Thursday.
The migrants reportedly banged on the train windows, shouting "No camp, no camp."
Police have detained migrants who lay on the rail tracks in protest against being sent to a reception camp. Dozens of migrants have fled, according to Reuters. Those who were told to get off the train, reportedly forced their way back on.