Al Jazeera News :
Germany has warned that the country was stretched to capacity to accommodate refugees streaming in through Hungary and Austria with southern city of Munich struggling to cope with the new arrivals.
More than 13,000 asylum seekers arrived in Munich on Saturday, adding up to about 450,000 others who have already made it to the country this year.
“Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a Munich police spokesman. Alexander Dobrindt, Germany’s federal transport minister, said “effective measures” were necessary to stop the influx.
“That includes help for countries from where refugees are fleeing and also includes an effective control of our own borders which also no longer works given the EU’s complete failure to protect its external borders,” Dobrindt said in a statement.
The International Organization for Migration said on Friday that more than 430,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with more than 2,700 dying en route or going missing.
Four European mayors called on Europe’s governments, in a joint column published on Sunday, to do more to help the refugees.
“European cities are ready to become places of
refuge. States grant the status of asylum but it is cities that provide shelter,” said Paris’ Anne Hidalgo, Barcelona’s Ada Colau, and the mayors of the Greek and Italian islands of Lesbos and Lampedusa – key entry points for refugees entering Europe – in the appeal published in Spanish daily El Pais.
“Our municipal services are already working on hosting plans to ensure bread, shelter and dignity to all who flee war and hunger. All that is needed is the help of states.”
The column was published on the eve of an extraordinary meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels called to seek urgent solutions to a migration crisis unprecedented in the bloc’s history.
“We ask that they do not turn their backs on cities, that they listen to the cry that is coming from them, we need the support and cooperation of states,” the mayors said.
This comes a day after people across Europe marched calling on their governments to help the distraught refugees. Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of London, Copenhagen, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Lisbon waving placards, saying “Refugee lives matter.”
There have been anti-immigration marches too in the Eastern European capitals. Thousands gathered to protest against accepting refugees in the Polish capital, Warsaw, calling for refugees to “go home”.
Germany has warned that the country was stretched to capacity to accommodate refugees streaming in through Hungary and Austria with southern city of Munich struggling to cope with the new arrivals.
More than 13,000 asylum seekers arrived in Munich on Saturday, adding up to about 450,000 others who have already made it to the country this year.
“Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a Munich police spokesman. Alexander Dobrindt, Germany’s federal transport minister, said “effective measures” were necessary to stop the influx.
“That includes help for countries from where refugees are fleeing and also includes an effective control of our own borders which also no longer works given the EU’s complete failure to protect its external borders,” Dobrindt said in a statement.
The International Organization for Migration said on Friday that more than 430,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with more than 2,700 dying en route or going missing.
Four European mayors called on Europe’s governments, in a joint column published on Sunday, to do more to help the refugees.
“European cities are ready to become places of
refuge. States grant the status of asylum but it is cities that provide shelter,” said Paris’ Anne Hidalgo, Barcelona’s Ada Colau, and the mayors of the Greek and Italian islands of Lesbos and Lampedusa – key entry points for refugees entering Europe – in the appeal published in Spanish daily El Pais.
“Our municipal services are already working on hosting plans to ensure bread, shelter and dignity to all who flee war and hunger. All that is needed is the help of states.”
The column was published on the eve of an extraordinary meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels called to seek urgent solutions to a migration crisis unprecedented in the bloc’s history.
“We ask that they do not turn their backs on cities, that they listen to the cry that is coming from them, we need the support and cooperation of states,” the mayors said.
This comes a day after people across Europe marched calling on their governments to help the distraught refugees. Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of London, Copenhagen, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Lisbon waving placards, saying “Refugee lives matter.”
There have been anti-immigration marches too in the Eastern European capitals. Thousands gathered to protest against accepting refugees in the Polish capital, Warsaw, calling for refugees to “go home”.
