Trains to Budapest halted as refugees protest being sent to camp

All international trains from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland are no longer traveling to Budapest due to the large number of migrants at the Hungarian capital’s main Keleti train station.

Trains will instead end at the Hungarian border town of Szob, according to statements Thursday by the Czech and Polish railways. Polish railways says travelers inconvenienced by the change can return their tickets.

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An estimated 3,000 migrants have camped out for days around Keleti in downtown Budapest. Conditions have grown increasingly squalid despite the efforts of volunteers distributing water, food, medicine and disinfectants. A migrant uproar ensued earlier in the day at Keleti when Hungarian authorities halted trains going to the west.

At the Hungarian town of Bicske, migrants were shocked to find out that their train was not heading to Austria but to a Hungarian migrant camp. Scores of police in riot gear were there to greet them.

The migrants started chanting “No camp!” in Arabic. Some tried to flee on foot. One family sat down beside the tracks and appealed to journalists for help.

When police told the media to move away, the husband in apparent desperation threw his wife and infant onto the tracks. Laying beside them, he started shouting, “We won’t move from here!”

Police in helmets and body armor surrounded the prone family and detained the man. The woman and infant were escorted off the tracks.

Other migrants scuffled with police and forced their way back onto the train, where an hours-long standoff in the sweltering sun began.

“We don’t need food and water. Just let us go to Germany,” one migrant said from an open train window.

— AP