Danish police closed a motorway and rail links with Germany yesterday in a bid to stem the flow of refugees heading north to Sweden, as Europe’s migrant crisis spreads northward.
The motorway, a vital traffic artery for people and goods between the two countries, was closed when some 300 refugees, including children, began walking on it. Police tried to persuade them to leave but appeared reluctant to use force, witnesses said.
“We are trying to talk to them and tell them that it is a really bad idea to walk on the motorway,” a police spokeswoman said.
Police also asked the state-owned railway operator to stop all trains between Germany and Denmark until further notice.
Vast numbers of people, many from Syria, are trying to reach safety in EU countries willing to have them. Most have headed to Germany, but Sweden is also a favourite destination. Both countries have more generous policies for refugees than their EU neighbours.
Denmark is part of the EU’s Schengen zone, where borders are meant to be open to allow free movement. When asked by Reuters whether blocking the road and rail links meant breaking with the Schengen system, a police spokesman he did not think so as he expected to traffic to start moving again soon, although he could not say when.
At Rodby, where train ferries arrive in Denmark from Germany, two trains carrying about 240 people were stopped by police. Refugees on board were refusing to leave the train, police said.
Around 100 foreign passengers left a train that was still on a ferry and were transferred to a school for registration.
Many refugees are reluctant to register in Denmark, where government has cut benefits
Many refugees are reluctant to register in Denmark, where a centre-right government has cut benefits.
“We know that many of them want to go to Sweden, but naturally we cannot let that happen,” police spokesman Carsten Andersen said. “So right now, we have asked them to start a dialogue. We are waiting patiently for some of them to agree to that and stick their heads out of the trains.”
Justice Minister Soren Pind said he was cutting short a trip to the United States to return to Denmark.
“For security reasons, the police, in collaboration with German authorities, decided that for the near future no travellers from Syria, Iraq, etcetera will arrive in Denmark by ferry to Rodby,” police said in a statement.
Meanhwile hundreds of migrants crossed the border to Austria from Hungary on foot yesterday, forcing authorities to close a road as they collected the people to take them to intake centres, police in the eastern province of Burgenland said.
The influx of around 800 people took police by surprise. It came after days of relatively smooth transfers by rail of thousands of migrants – many of them fleeing crisis areas in the Middle East and Africa – making their way west to Germany and beyond.
"We will wait and see what the situation is in the next few hours and tonight, if more people come. This is absolutely possible," a police spokesman said.
He suspected the group may have disembarked from a regional train that stopped on the Hungarian side of the frontier.
Another group of around 880 people had arrived on foot overnight before authorities sent them by rail to Vienna, where most have been making connections to destinations further on.
Austria last weekend threw open its borders to refugees on their westward trek, but the country has since resumed spot checks on people entering the country and has stepped up inspections of vehicles to try to catch human traffickers.