Migrant influx tests EU
Thousands of refugees and migrants arrived in Athens yesterday, piling further pressure on increasingly divided European nations as they struggle to cope with the unprecedented influx.
Ministers in Athens were holding talks on the migrant crisis ahead of a wider meeting with top EU officials today.
Two ships carrying some 4,300 people, most of them refugees from war-torn Syria, docked at Athens' Piraeus port after sailing from Lesbos, one of several Greek islands inundated by thousands of people crossing from Turkey in flimsy boats.
European countries are battling with the continent's biggest migration crisis since World War II as people flee war and repression in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
More than 350,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. At least 2600 people were killed, it added.
In France, Eurostar trains ground to a halt in the early hours of Wednesday as several people -- believed to be migrants -- climbed onto the tracks near the port of Calais, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded in the dark and in stifling heat.
In Germany, More than 100 migrants an hour arriving on packed trains to the southern city of Munich, police said.
Police in Hungary -- a country that saw 50,000 migrants enter in August alone -- blocked some 2,000 people from boarding trains from Budapest to Austria and Germany yesterday, triggering a demonstration by about 100-150 people.
Hungary this week allowed thousands to board trains to Austria and Germany but in a U-turn on Tuesday police suddenly blocked access to the main station in Budapest for anyone without an EU visa. The government said it was simply applying EU rules.
The Turkish coastguard said at least nine Syrians drowned yesterday when their boats sank on their way to the Greek island of Kos. Eight others were missing.
Analyst says the crisis may threaten Europe's cherished system of borderless travel.
With Hungary sealing off its main railway station to stop asylum-seekers moving across the European Union, observers fear the genie is out of the bottle and other countries will restore internal borders to curb the flow of humanity. Since its creation in 1995, the Schengen area has abolished passport controls for travel between 22 EU countries and non-EU Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Supporters say Schengen has been a boon for Europe's single market, slashing costs by doing away with armies of border bureaucrats and sweeping away psychological barriers among Europeans.
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