BICSKE, Hungary — After misery, delivery. Hundreds of migrants, exhausted after breaking away from police and marching for hours toward Western Europe, boarded buses provided by Hungary’s government as Austria in the early-morning hours said it and Germany would let them in.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann announced the decision early Saturday after speaking with Angela Merkel, his German counterpart — not long after Hungary’s surprise nighttime move to provide buses for the weary travelers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
With people streaming in long lines along highways from a Budapest train station and near a migrant reception center in this town, the buses would be used because “transportation safety can’t be put at risk,” said Janos Lazar, chief of staff to the prime minister.
Lazar blamed Germany’s “contradictory communications” and the European Union for the crisis.
The asylum seekers had made dangerous treks in scorching heat, crawling under barbed wire on Hungary’s southern frontier and facing the hostility of some locals along the way. Their first stop will be Austria, on Hungary’s western border, although most hope to reach Germany.
Hungarian authorities had refused to let them board trains to the west, and the migrants balked at going to processing centers, fearing they would be forced to live in Hungary.
But government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told The Associated Press the government was providing buses for the migrants on a one-time basis and Hungary would continue to abide by European Union rules, including the obligation to register all refugees.
Abdullah Baker, 26-year-old physician from Aleppo, who left his parents and four sisters behind, wants to work at a hospital in Freiburg, Germany, where a friend is employed. He and two friends seemed to be the only Syrians on a bus carrying 50 people.
“My family had tears of joy when I told them about the bus,” Baker said. “We always fear the unknown, but I long for closure.”
Under European law, refugees are supposed to seek asylum in the first European Union country they enter. But many see limited economic opportunities and a less welcoming atmosphere in Hungary than in Germany, Sweden and other Western nations.
In what the Hungarian media called a “day of uprisings,” about 350 people broke through a police cordon Friday and began heading to Austria, 85 miles to the west, on tracks leading away from the railway station. Surprised riot police scrambled for their helmets as the crowd surged from the train.
One man, a 51-year-old Pakistani, collapsed about 800 yards from the station and died despite efforts to rescue him.
Those left behind, mostly women and children, were put on buses and taken to the asylum center.
Hours earlier, about 2,000 people set out from Budapest’s Keleti station for a 106-mile journey to the Austrian border.
At first police tried to block them, but they quickly gave up. By nightfall, the marchers had covered about 30 miles.
Along the way, some met with gestures of support. Many flashed the V-sign for victory, while some handed out bottles of water.
A small number made it clear the new arrivals were not welcome. “Go home already,” one man shouted in Hungarian from a passing car.
Also Friday the Hungarian parliament tightened its immigration rules, approving the creation of transit zones on the Hungarian border with Serbia, where migrants would be kept until their asylum requests were decided within eight days.
Migrants would have limited chance to appeal those decisions.
In Geneva, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday nearly 5,600 people crossed from Greece to Macedonia a day earlier. That’s roughly double the 2,500 to 3,000 per day in recent weeks.
Earlier Friday, Antonio Guterres, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, issued a statement urging the EU to create a “mass relocation program … with the mandatory participation of all EU member states” for would-be recipients who clear a screening process.
He said a “very preliminary estimate” would be for the creation of at least 200,000 places to be added across the bloc.
The U.N. comments came a day after a round of recriminations among EU leaders.
