EUROPE-MIGRANTS/SLOVENIA AUSTRIA BORDER Migrants use new passage through Slovenia to head west

Record ID: 135449

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/SLOVENIA AUSTRIA BORDER Migrants use new passage through Slovenia to head west
  • Date: 18th October 2015
  • Summary: SENTILJ, SLOVENIA (OCTOBER 18, 2015) (REUTERS) MIGRANTS QUEUING BEHIND BARRIERS AT SLOVENIA-AUSTRIA BORDER CROSSING POLICEMEN STANDING AT BORDER CROSSING PEOPLE SITTING AND WAITING TO CROSS BORDER FAMILY WITH CHILD SITTING BEHIND BARRIER POLICE VAN PARKED IN FRONT OF BARRIER WOMAN GRABBING CHILD FROM BEHIND BARRIER VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WAITING TO CROSS BORDER FAMILY WITH CHIL
  • Embargoed: 2nd November 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Slovenia
  • Country: Slovenia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABAI3WG3BJNHRZ8R0MT03AZOSP
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Hundreds of migrants turned up at Slovenia's border with Austria, after a passage through the country was opened to limit the influx in neighbouring countries.
    Some 3,000 migrants, many of them Syrians fleeing war, entered Slovenia from Croatia on Saturday after fellow EU member Hungary sealed its southern border with Croatia at midnight on Friday.
    Croatia asked Slovenia to accept 5,000 migrants per day, but Austria told Slovenia they could only accept a maximum of 1,500.
    "It's easy to get from Serbia to here. From Turkey to Bulgaria and from Bulgaria to Serbia is not very easy, it's very, very hard for people. From Serbia to here is very, very easy. They make everything, train, food, help, everything, shoes, dresses, everything give to people. Thank you very much to Serbia, Croatia and here," said Nasar, a refugee from Mosul in Iraq.
    The influx has exposed deep divisions within Europe, with Hungary's right-wing taking a hard line against mainly Muslim migrants who it says pose a threat to the prosperity, security and "Christian values" of the continent.
    EU members Croatia and Slovenia have both said they will not stop migrants from crossing providing Austria and Germany also keep their doors open.
    But while Slovenia says it wants to limit arrivals to around 2,500 per day, upwards of 5,000 daily are crossing from Greece into Macedonia and then Serbia.
    The EU has agreed a plan, resisted by Hungary and several other ex-Communist members of the bloc, to share out 120,000 refugees among its members.
    That is only a small proportion of the 700,000 migrants expected to reach Europe's shores by boat and dinghy from North Africa and Turkey this year.
    The majority of them have fled war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and made the perilous journey by boat and dinghy across the Mediterranean and Aegean seas.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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