Hungary sends migrants to Austrian border, provides bus service in ‘surprising move’

Late night on Friday, Hungary offered bus service for migrants to send them to the Austrian border.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban earlier expressed his strict stance against welcoming Muslim refugees to the country to preserve the Christian authenticity of Europe. However, migrants formed more than a mile long queue on Hungary’s highway to Austria. Hungarian authorities apparently avoided a direct confrontation with the migrants and decided to pass them on to its neighbouring country.

A number of buses started taking migrants from Budapest’s main train station to the Austrian border by early Saturday morning. The migrants initially hesitated to get on the buses but were relieved to leave Hungary, The Washington Post reported.

Calling it a “surprise move” by Hungary to provide transportation for the asylum seekers, the BBC reported the migrants had started arriving in Austria.

By providing around 100 buses to the migrants, Hungary might have shrugged them off to its neighbour, but it would hardly contribute anything to solve the ongoing migrant crisis as Austria has not been enthusiastic about accepting Middle Eastern refugees so far.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said Austria as well as Germany had decided to welcome the asylum seekers. “Due to today's plight at the Hungarian border, Austria and Germany are going to allow an onward journey of the refugees into their countries,” Faymann’s Facebook post says.

The post says Austria expects Hungary to fulfil its European obligations including the ones arising from the Dublin convention. “We expect the willingness of Hungary, the existing pressures on the basis of the of the European commission desired fair distribution of the refugees and of the planned emergency mechanism to solve, to which we make a contribution today.”

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