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Sunday, September 20, 2015

The Latest: Thousands cross Austria-Hungary border

Slovenia's government says Prime Minister Miro Cerar has urged a swift all-EU response to the migrant crisis in a phone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. German federal police say they are expecting two special trains from Austria to bring migrants across the border into Germany via the southeastern town of Freilassing. Police say an arson attack on a future asylum shelter for up to 400 people in Wertheim in southern Germany destroyed the building so badly that it can no longer be used for the migrants. A long line of people fleeing conflict and poverty formed on the empty truck parking lot Sunday as recent arrivals from Hungary waited for buses to take them to temporary shelters across Austria, or to the nearby railway station, where two specially organized trains had already left for Vienna. Dozens of soldiers, some wearing vests identifying them as military police lined up beside them, arms crossed to keep them in line, as they moved toward the waiting vehicles. Red cross workers and volunteers set up impromptu feeding stations, handing out sandwiches and noodles. Turkey's coast guard agency said in a statement to its website that it intervened after being alerted that a commercial vessel hit a migrant boat off the western port city of Canakkale and that bodies were in the water. The crossing is near the site of clashes on Wednesday between baton-wielding Hungarian riot police and migrants and the reopening follows negotiations with Pinter's Serbian counterpart, Nebojsa Stefanovic. While Hungary has repelled migrants at its southern border with Serbia with a razor-wire fence, those arriving from Croatia on its western border are instead greeted with buses and trains that escort them to Austria. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told news portal index.hu on Sunday that migrants entering from Croatia are receiving the favorable treatment for now because Hungary doesn't yet have a fence completed along its frontier with Croatia, whereas the fence with Serbia is complete. Ministry officials are meeting with charity organizations to try and find temporary shelter for the new arrivals, who are fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. After lashing out against Croatian officials, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is now trading barbs with his Romanian counterpart over a razor-wire border fence that Hungary is building between the two countries to keep out migrants. A boat with 46 migrants or refugees has sunk in Greece and the coast guard says it is searching for 26 missing off the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos. The coast guard says a Lithuanian helicopter from the European border patrol agency Frontex spotted people in the sea off the southeastern coast of Lesbos early Sunday.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.sfgate.com