German police say some 12,200 refugees seeking asylum in the European Union flooded into the southern German city of Munich Saturday, and authorities fear many of them will be spending their nights outdoors because they have nowhere else to go.

Authorities said Sunday that the flow of migrants entering the city has not abated. Munich is a major point of entry to Germany from the east. 

On Saturday, rallies over the escalating refugee crisis engulfed major European cities.

Tens of thousands of people filled central London to protest against the British government position on the escalating crisis. Human rights activists, politicians and performing artists marched to Parliament Square in solidarity with the plight of the refugees, who are trying to escape armed conflicts, especially in the Middle East.

Protesters were holding placards reading: “Open the Borders” and “Refugees In, Tories Out,” a reference to the party of Prime Minister David Cameron, who agreed last week to take in 20,000 refugees over five years, far fewer that the protesters demand.

Five hundred thousand migrants and refugees have been seeking asylum in European Union countries this year.

A crowd of about 30,000 people rallied in Copenhagen, Denmark, where local media reported demonstrators held up signs reading: “Refugees Welcome” and “Europe is the closest neighborhood to Syria.”

In Stockholm, Sweden, around 1,000 people gathered in a show of support for a more generous government policy of welcoming refugees.

Others opposed

But about 5,000 people joined a protest against migrants Saturday in Warsaw where the government has opposed fixed refugee quotas proposed by the European Union.Many of them chanted anti-Islamic slogans, while a much smaller number of about 1,000 people rallied in favor of welcoming migrants into Poland.

Hungary’s plan to build a large fence, deploy the army and jail immigrants drew harsh criticism from Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, who compared Hungary’s treatment of migrants to the Nazi era.

“Piling refugees on trains in the hopes that they go far, far away brings back memories of the darkest period of our continent,” Faymann was quoted Saturday by the German weekly Der Spiegel.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Chancellor Faymann’s comments were “totally unworthy of any leading 21st-century European politician.”Hungary summoned the Austrian ambassador in Budapest to object to the comments. 

Hungary has seen more than 180,000 migrants and refugees this year going through its territory to cross the border to Austria, with Germany as their final destination. 

Speaking Saturday in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the EU member states to share the responsibility of accepting people seeking asylum.Germany expects to take in 800,000 migrant and refugees this year alone.

East European countries in particular, the United States and rich Persian Gulf nations are coming under sharp criticism from human rights groups for not doing enough to help with the Middle East migrant crisis. 

Hungary’s position

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called for a massive European aid package for Syria’s neighbors to help curb the flow of migrants into the European Union.

Orban spoke Friday with Germany’s Bild newspaper, defending his reluctance to admit more migrants into the EU through Hungary, which has been overwhelmed with refugees hoping to travel farther west.

The Hungarian leader said Syrian refugees already had a safe place to stay in the refugee camps surrounding Syria, and maintained that those coming to Europe were not in fact seeking safety but instead just a better living standard. He said each country in the EU should contribute an additional one percent to the EU budget to be gleaned from spending cuts elsewhere to make up a $3.4 billion aid package to give to Syria’s neighbors Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

In an interview with German weekly Der Spiegel, Austrian Chancellor Faymann provided counterpoint, saying Orban is acting “irresponsibly” when he maintains that all the refugees are economic ones. He said Austria, Germany and Sweden – the countries that have been the most welcoming to the current influx of people – recognize that the migrants are war refugees and stand by their right to asylum.

On Friday at a meeting in Prague, the foreign ministers of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia refused entreaties by their counterparts from wealthier Germany and Luxembourg to accept the mandatory quotas, despite its endorsement by the United Nations.

The plan allows for the distribution of 160,000 migrants among the 28 EU member nations.

 

Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier had urged a unified approach to dealing with Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, possibly “the biggest challenge for the EU in its history,” he said.

 

Steinmeier also called for a “fair distribution mechanism” for dealing with the additional migrants expected to enter Europe. His country receives more asylum requests than any other European nation and anticipates 800,000 migrants to arrive this year.

 

Denmark declines plan

 

Denmark also announced Friday that it will not absorb any of 160,000 asylum seekers. “We have taken our share,” Integration Minister Inger Stojberg said.

 

More than 3,000 migrants arrived in Denmark this week, though most had indicated they were en route to friendlier Sweden.

 

Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) voiced support for the EU distribution plan but also noted that by year’s end the EU would have to relocate 200,000 refugees from the front-line countries of Greece, Italy and Hungary.

 

The U.N. called for the immediate establishment of large-scale reception centers in those countries.

 

The UNHCR also welcomed Washington’s offer to accept 10,000 more refugees and increase its humanitarian assistance to Syrians fleeing violence at home. But it said “the United States could and should do more.”

More on US plan

 

The United States has taken in about 1,500 refugees from Syria since its civil war broke out more than four years ago.

 

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president approved accepting more of the refugees beginning in October.

 

The White House promised “robust” background checks on the new arrivals to ensure that national security is not endangered. U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper said this past week that he feared Islamic State militants might infiltrate the refugees escaping conflict in the Middle East as they head to other countries.
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