Central Europe gives up on holding refugees back from AustriaHungary, Slovenia and Croatia abandon attempts to block passage of migrants to Austria while EU struggles to find lasting political solution
Over 200 Syrians and Iraqis saved by Turkish coastguards allegedly threatened with deportation back to war zones. Photograph: Umit Bektas/Reuters
Patrick Kingsley in Zagreb
Monday 21 September 2015 04.07 AEST Last modified on Monday 21 September 2015 09.01 AEST
The countries of central Europe suspended their resistance this weekend to Europe’s largest refugee exodus since the second world war, as Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia all shunted tens of thousands of people towards Austria, reversing most recent attempts to block their passage.
At least 15,000 refugees mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq were funnelled from Croatia into Hungary and then onwards to Austria over the weekend, the Austrian news agency APA said, after Hungary temporarily gave up trying to stop refugees from crossing its border. Another 2,500 have crossed from Croatia into Slovenia, despite Slovenia initially trying to block their passage.
The moves represent a volte-face from both countries – and in particular from Hungary. The Budapest government had previously tried to stop the entry of undocumented travellers by building a fence along its southern border with Serbia, and by posting military vehicles on its western border with Croatia.
But by Sunday, its resistance was mostly rhetorical. The country admitted thousands of refugees over the weekend from Croatia, whose shared border is not yet blocked by a fence, even as foreign minister Péter Szijjártó promised tougher measures in the future. Szijjártó said: “We are a state that is more than 1,000 years old that throughout its history has had to defend not only itself, but Europe as well many times. That’s the way it’s going to be now.”
Thousands more continued to enter Europe on Saturday and Sunday at the other end of the refugee route in the Greek islands, where coastguards said that 24 people were feared to have drowned on Sunday. An inflatable refugee boat, attempting to reach Lesbos from the Turkish shoreline, capsized before it reached its destination, and only 22 out of 46 passengers were rescued.
The number of migrant shipwrecks in the Aegean has increased in recent days, with Sunday’s incident the sixth in a week of accidents that have left around 100 dead. For many of the survivors, the trauma has not ended with their rescue: it emerged on Sunday that more than 200 Syrians and Iraqis saved by the Turkish coastguard following the sinking of their ship near Kos had allegedly been threatened with deportation back to the war zones they had just fled.
One Syrian survivor, who asked not to be named as she is still in detention, said in a voice message: “They are threatening us that Syrians will be deported to Syria, Iraqis to Iraq. If they send us back to Syria we will die.” The Turkish government has denied any Syrians will be deported.
The autumnal weather will make the sea crossing more dangerous, but Syrians making their way through the Balkans at the moment said their friends and relatives still hoped to follow in their footsteps despite the rising danger.
Nowar el-Debiat, a 31-year-old communications engineer from Syria, said: “The level will be lower because the sea is not good, and maybe the fact that Hungary has closed its borders will put people off. But after five years of war in my country, people cannot bear the situation and so those who used to not think of emigration are now thinking about it. So in October the migration will continue.”
Amid the chaos, there were stronger calls for European countries to respond to the crisis on a collective basis, rather than as individual countries acting in their own self-interests. Michael Diedring, the secretary general of the European Council for Refugees and Exiles, a union of 87 European non-governmental organisations, said: “EU states need to stop doing what they are currently doing, which is making decisions for their own benefit.”
He added: “There’s so much pressure at the moment that no single state is going to be able to survive [by acting on their own]. Even Germany.”
Central Europe gives up on holding refugees back from Austria
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Hillary Clinton urges US to ‘lead world’ in crisis response, as current secretary of state Kerry says US will accept 100,000 refugees in 2017
John Kerry meets with refugees fleeing Syria, in Berlin. Photograph: Pool/Reuters
Jon Swaine in New York
@jonswaine
Monday 21 September 2015 04.03 AEST
Rescued boat refugees held in Turkey 'threatened with deportation to Syria'
The US will accept an extra 30,000 refugees from around the world over the next two years, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday, as the Obama administration came under further pressure to take in more victims of the Syrian civil war.
Speaking as his predecessor Hillary Clinton urged America to “lead the world” in responding to the Syrian emergency, Kerry said the total number of refugees taken by the US yearly would rise from 70,000 to 85,000 next year and to 100,000 in 2017, Reuters reported.
“The need is enormous, but we are determined to answer the call,” Kerry said, during remarks in Berlin. Kerry reportedly did not say whether any of the additional refugees would be from Syria.
Earlier on Sunday, Clinton said the US should take in more than six times the 10,000 Syrian refugees that has been proposed by President Barack Obama.
“We’re facing the worst refugee crisis since the end of world war two, and I think the United States has to do more,” Clinton said on CBS. “And I would like to see us move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000.”
Kerry’s predecessor as secretary of state said the US should vet applicants to prioritise welcoming the “most vulnerable” people who have fled the Syrian civil war, such as Christians and Yazidis who have faced religious persecution from Islamist militants.
Clinton’s remarks brought her into agreement with Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland who is a rival for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. He urged Obama to accept 65,000 displaced Syrians during a flashpoint in the crisis earlier this month. A group of 14 Senate Democrats cited the same figure in a letter to Obama four months ago.
Clinton also urged United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon to convene an international meeting at this month’s annual general assembly in New York, in order to push states to commit more funding and support for the Syrian relief effort.
Speaking days after a senior US general disclosed that a $500m “train and equip” programme had resulted in only four or five American-backed Syrians actually fighting the Islamic State, Clinton conceded: “We have a failed programme.”
She stressed that she had urged Obama to begin such operations several years ago while serving as the most senior US diplomat.
“A lot of what I worried about has happened,” she said. “Where we are today is not where we were.”
Clinton said the US should persevere with arming moderate elements and provide more support to regional allies.
“I wouldn’t give up on ‘train and equip’, but I sure would push the Pentagon to take a hard look at why what has been done has been such a failure,” she said.
Turning to domestic politics, Clinton reiterated her apology for using only a personal email server during her tenure at the State Department, the disclosure of which has now dogged her campaign for several months.
“I’m sorry I made a choice that has raised all these questions,” she said, dismissing suggestions that her aides had felt unable to challenge her.
She also said her campaign was doing nothing to prepare for the possibility that Vice-President Joe Biden would join the Democratic presidential primary contest.
And in a rare comment directly naming Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the leftwing firebrand who has overtaken Clinton in some opinion polls of Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote in the primary, Clinton said: “I know Bernie. I respect his enthusiastic advocacy.”
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
I'm pretty sure Austria is in Central Europe