Hungary halts rail traffic in bid to stop migrants

[bemildred]

BRUSSELS — Overwhelmed by thousands of asylum-seekers, Hungarian authorities Tuesday briefly halted rail traffic from their nation’s main train station, the latest blow to borderless movement in Europe.

The abolition of border controls between E.U. nations have been a central pillar of European leaders’ dream of stitching together a continent of common values and inter-connected economies. But the mounting migration crisis has in just weeks begun to erode a system that took decades to build.

Hungarian authorities shuttered Budapest’s grand fin-de-siecle train station for hours on Tuesday morning, stopping rail traffic for all passengers while they worked to clear crowds of hundreds of migrants who had gathered at the station in recent days.

The asylum-seekers, many of whom are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, hope to make it onward to Germany , which has promised shelter and sustenance for Syrians. By midday in Budapest, the train station had been reopened, but migrants were being kept away, Hungary’s state-owned news agency reported.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/hungary-halts-rail-traffic-in-bid-to-stop-migrants/2015/09/01/43897405-647e-4305-8061-9d6f25250791_story.html

[underpants]

1. That is a mess

And I see very little mention of it in the press.

[bemildred]

2. Deer in the headlights.

That is the Yurpean political classes. They look up from their tisane and see hordes of hungry desperate people comng towards them. It's so unexpected.

[underpants]

3. What does this say about people

They pick up their families and say "We're going to Germany" because they offer amnesty. As long as the get their feet in Europe the refugees are willing to walk it if that's what it takes. Amazing and inspiring.


And we complain about traffic and inconveniences.

[totodeinhere]

4. Why isn't there more attention paid to this monumental crisis at DU?

It should be all over the greatest threads page but it's not.

[bemildred]

5. I think some subjects leave people speechless.

It is indeed interesting to see which subjects those are, it's not always what you would think it would be, but this is one of them. I don't quite know what to make of it myself. Mass migrations have been out of fashion. I've no real experience with this sort of thing before.

And I think our political leaders have just begun to focus on the problem, too.