Hundreds of refugees were left in no-man's-land on the
Austrian-Slovenian border on Tuesday after spending the night in the
open when Austria refused to let them enter.
The refugees had been
accompanied by Slovenia soldiers to the border and left there on
Monday. They were without water and food and were lighting fires to keep
warm.
There were many families with
children among the crowds that were being held behind a fence.
They repeatedly chanted in unison, "We want to go!"
A
spokesperson for the Austrian chancellor said on Tuesday that Vienna
was trying to come to an arrangement with Germany on the issue of
refugees.
"[Austrian] Chancellor Werner Faymann is in the closest
of contact with [German] Chancellor Angela Merkel," Josef Ostermayer
said in Vienna, adding that he was co-operating with his German
counterpart Peter Altmaier, Berlin's refugee czar.
The comments
come as tensions rise between the two European Union neighbours with one
leading regional politician on the German side of the border accusing
the Austrians of not coordinating properly, which was harming
neighbourly relations.
Horst Seehofer, premier of the German state of Bavaria, went on to demand that Merkel talk directly to the government in Vienna.
Ostermayer
responded to this criticism by saying: "Once the refugees are already
on the move, it is more a matter of deciding whether we provide the
people with medical care and food or we let them freeze to death. In
this challenging situation we must behave humanely."
He added that
the key was to stop the refugees from fleeing in the first place, which
would require Turkey's co-operation, among other things. He also
insisted that the refugees must be registered on the EU's external
borders.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Refugees stranded on Austrian border without food and water
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