Hungary sets off migrant buses to Austrian border

Budapest: The first buses carrying migrants who have been stranded in the Hungarian capital set off for Austria and Germany early today after they agreed to receive thousands of refugees desperate to start new lives in Western Europe.
With tensions growing across the European Union about how to handle the escalating crisis on its borders, buses laid on by the Hungarian authorities left the Keleti train station carrying people who have been stuck for days in makeshift refugee camps.

The mass march came as the father of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi, whose drowning has shocked people around the world and underlined the human cost of Europe’s escalating refugee crisis, buried his family in their war-torn hometown of Kobane.

Hungary has become the newest flashpoint as thousands of migrants try to get to Western Europe, particularly Germany, which has said it will no longer deport Syrian refugees and will take in 800,000 people this year.

Yesterday evening, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief-of-staff Janos Lazar said Budapest would lay on around 100 buses to take migrants to the Austrian border if they wanted, saying, “The top priority is that Hungary’s transport should not be crippled.”