Germany welcomes thousands of tired migrants

“Basically we are acting according to the rules”, Pangl said.

Within hours, travellers predominantly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who had been told for days they could not leave Hungary were scooped from roadsides and Budapest’s central train station and placed on overnight buses, driven to the frontier with Austria and allowed to walk across as a new morning dawned.

Others set off from the station to make the 170 km journey on foot. A platforms filled up again on Sunday.

This weekend alone, some 17,000 migrants were expected to have passed through Bavaria, federal police said. Some seemed intimidated by the welcoming applause.

In an ugly incident Saturday night, several dozens far-right protesters rallied outside Dortmund railway station against the newcomers. About 4,000 people were sent to other German states.

Ms Merkel’s decision to allow the influx has caused a rift in her conservative bloc, with her Bavarian allies accusing her of having pushed forward without asking the federal states dealing with the influx. “But this is far from over, both in Hungary and in Europe as a whole”, said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty’s deputy director for Europe.

“Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of asylum-seekers fleeing death (as) victims of war and hunger who are hoping to start a new life, the gospel calls on us and asks us to be the neighbour of the smallest and the most abandoned, to give them concrete hope”, he said in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome.

“This has to be an eye opener how messed up the situation in Europe is now”, Austria’s Sebastian Kurz told reporters in unusually blunt comments, moments after Peter Szijjarto, his Hungarian counterpart, blamed the “irresponsible statements” of European Union politicians on the migrant crisis.

The United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates at least 366,402 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year. “No, we come to here to help ourselves”.

As European leaders stepped up efforts to tackle the historic crisis, France also said it would take 24,000 more asylum-seekers under a European plan to relocate 120,000 refugees from hard-hit frontline countries.

Gulf states Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have come under criticism for officially taking in zero refugees.

They were met with wholly unexpected hospitality featuring free high-speed trains, seemingly bottomless boxes of supplies, and gauntlets of well-wishers offering trays of candy for everyone and cuddly toys for the tots in mothers’ arms.

Thousands of migrants and refugees arrived at Budapest’s Keleti train station after travelling from Syria through the Balkans and Greece.

In Munich, Dave Blanchard of Oregon Public Broadcasting says as the migrants arrive, “they’re cordoned off, they walk to a medical check, and then are taken to a processing center”.

Some people originally from Syria but who have lived in Germany for a long time brought sweets and slogans to welcome the refugees.

The Interior Ministry said Monday it has applied for activation of a European mechanism for civil protection assistance, which it said would be of “crucial importance” in improving migrants’ reception facilities – which are, at best, rudimentary. After World War II, in the face of the Cold War, Germany instituted liberal policies toward applicants for political asylum, making it a prime destination for people fleeing wars and other political strife.

On the Greek island of Lesbos, about 500 Afghans protesting at lengthy identification procedures scuffled with police. Among those already in that category are Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia.