UN lauds Austrian, German welcome for migrants
A migrant carries a child as they arrive at the Hungarian-Austrian border in Nickelsdorf, Austria, on Sept. 5, where they came from Budapest as Austria in the early-morning hours said it and Germany would let them in. AP
The latest news as tens of thousands of migrants pour into countries across Europe. All times local (CET):
1 p.m.
The UN refugee agency has praised Austria and Germany for deciding to take in thousands of migrants who crossed the border from Hungary.
The agency said in a statement Saturday that “this is political leadership based on humanitarian values.”
The Geneva-based body also lauded civil society groups and ordinary citizens in Austria and Germany for helping provide a welcome to people in need.
The agency said that “a remarkable outpouring of public response” is driving some governments to change their stance on accepting migrants.
But it said “the concentration of refugees and migrants in a small number of countries willing to receive them is not a sustainable solution.”
12:30 p.m.
German police have searched the home of a 26-year-old Berlin man alleged to have celebrated the drowning of a Syrian boy in a Facebook posting.
A spokesperson for Berlin police says officers seized a computer and two cell phones during the raid early Saturday.
Valeska Jakubowski told The Associated Press that the man, whose name was not disclosed, was being investigated for “defaming the memory of the deceased and incitement to hatred.” If convicted he could face up to three years in prison.
Police say the man wrote “we are not mourning but celebrating it” above a picture of the body of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned earlier this week off the coast of Turkey.
German authorities are cracking down on far-right extremists using social media to stir up hatred of migrants
11:20 a.m.
The first train carrying 167 migrants from Austria to Germany has arrived in Munich.
Police say the train arrived in the Bavarian capital at 10:25 a.m. (0825 GMT). The migrants were among a larger group who had traveled by bus from Hungary to Austria.
Federal police spokesperson Simon Hegewald told The Associated Press that a specially chartered train from Salzburg, Austria, with several hundred migrants on board was expected in Munich around noon.
11:15 a.m.
Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila says he is ready to open his house for refugees, and they can move in on Jan. 1, 2016.
Sipila told Finnish broadcaster YLE Saturday morning that his family has a house in central Finland that they no longer use since moving to Helsinki.
Details of how to apply and how many people the house could accommodate weren’t immediately available.
Last month, Finland’s interior ministry said it expects that up to 15,000 people would apply for asylum in the country—10,000 higher than previous estimates.
The leader of the Center Party, Sipila has been heading a center-right government since May.
9 a.m.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says there is no legal limit to the number of asylum seekers her country can receive.
Merkel told the Funke consortium of newspapers in an interview published Saturday that “the right to political asylum has no limits on the number of asylum seekers.”
She says that “as a strong, economically healthy country we have the strength to do what is necessary” and ensure every asylum seeker gets a fair hearing.
But Merkel repeated her government’s position that those migrants who stand no realistic chance of getting permission to stay need to be returned to their home country.
Germany has seen tens of thousands of migrants arriving each month, many of them refugees fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Eritrea and elsewhere.
7 a.m.
More than 1,000 people from the Middle East and Asia, exhausted after breaking away from police and marching for hours toward Western Europe, have arrived before dawn Saturday on the border with Austria.
The breakthrough became possible when Austria announced that it and Germany would take the migrants on humanitarian grounds and to aid their EU neighbor.
In jubilant scenes on the border, hundreds of migrants bearing blankets over their shoulders to provide cover from heavy rains walked off from buses and into Austria, where volunteers at a roadside Red Cross shelter offered them hot tea and handshakes of welcome.
Many collapsed in exhaustion on the floor, smiles on their faces.
