Germany, Austria to open borders to stranded refugees

Germany and Austria will let in hundreds of refugees who have been stranded in Hungary. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann announced the decision today after speaking with Angela Merkel, his German counterpart, not long after Hungary began loading the migrants onto buses bound for the border.

Most of the refugees are from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and have already made harrowing journeys from their homelands to Europe. On Thursday, a heartbreaking photo of a drowned Syrian toddler lying on a Turkish beach brought renewed international attention and interest to the migration crisis. Three-year-old Aylan Kurdi had fled Syria with his family and died on a boat trip from Turkey to Greece. His mother and brother also drowned; all three were buried today in their hometown of Kobani, Syria.

With people streaming in long lines along highways from a Budapest train station, Hungary decided to offer them buses because “transportation safety can't be put at risk,” said Janos Lazar, chief of staff to the prime minister.

Hungarian authorities had refused to let the refugees board trains to the West, and migrants avoided processing centers for they they would be forced to live in Hungary. Under European law, refugees are supposed to seek asylum in the first European Union country they enter. But many see limited economic opportunities and a less welcoming atmosphere in Hungary than in Germany, Sweden, and other Western nations.

Also today, the Hungarian parliament tightened its immigration rules, approving the creation of transit zones on the Hungarian border with Serbia where new migrants entering the country would be kept until their asylum requests were decided within eight days.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.