The European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg have struggled to identify a unified response to the refugee crisis as thousands of people from war-torn countries continued to stream into Germany via Austria.
The last train carrying an estimated 1,000 refugees pulled into Germany’s Munich from Austria at 1:30am local time on Sunday (23:30 GMT), bringing the total to have arrived in the Bavarian capital to about 8,000 in less than two days.
They seemed dazed by the calls of “Welcome to Munich”, from the few dozen well-wishers remaining at around midnight, as well as by their determination to thrust chocolate bars, bananas or bread rolls into their hands.
A similar total is expected to arrive in Munich later on Sunday.
Many of the refugees said they were fleeing the civil war in Syria, while others were from Afghanistan or Iraq.
German interior ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns said Berlin’s decision to open its borders to Syrians was an exceptional case for humanitarian reasons. He said Europe’s so-called Dublin rules, which require people to apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, had not been suspended.
“The Dublin rules are still valid and we expect other European Union member states to stick to them,” he said.
After days of confrontation and chaos, Hungary deployed more than 100 buses overnight to take thousands of the refugees who had streamed there from southeast Europe to the Austrian frontier. Austria said it had agreed with Germany to allow the refugees access, waiving the asylum rules.
“Every refugee I spoke to was glad they left the horrendous experience they said they had in Hungary these past few days,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from the Austrian town of Nickelsdorf, said.
“People here were provided with clothing, blankets and tents,” he said.
Hungary, the main entry point into Europe’s borderless Schengen zone for refugees, has taken a hard-line, vowing to seal its southern frontier with a new, high fence by September 15.
Hungarian officials have portrayed the crisis as a defence of Europe’s prosperity, identity and “Christian values” against an influx of mainly Muslim refugees.
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