Thousands of Syrian refugees arrive in Germany

The German state of Bavaria has said 2,000 of up to 7,000 Syrian refugees expected in the country today had arrived on special trains in Munich.

Queues snaked towards tents where the new arrivals were being registered.

Earlier, both Austria and Germany opened their borders to thousands of refugees, bussed to the Hungarian border by a right-wing government that had tried to stop them but was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers reaching Europe's frontiers.

Left to walk the last yards into Austria, rain-soaked migrants, many of them refugees from Syria's civil war, were whisked by train and shuttle bus to Vienna, where authorities prompted arranged for thousands to head straight on to Germany.

Austrian police said over 6,000 had entered the country by midday with more expected in what has become Europe's most acute refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

Munich police said Arabic-speaking interpreters helped refugees with procedures at emergency registration centres.

In Budapest, almost emptied of migrants the night before, the main railway station was again filling up with new arrivals but trains to western Europe remained cancelled. So hundreds set off by foot, saying they would walk to the Austrian border, 170km away, like others had tried yesterday...
  rte.ie
5/9/15
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