Migrants in tense standoff with Hungarian police

Fri, Sep 4th 2015, 11:07 AM

As British Prime Minister David Cameron says the United Kingdom is ready to accept thousands more of the migrants flooding into Europe, hundreds of families stranded in Hungary were in a standoff with police Friday. The central European nation is being overwhelmed by thousands trying to escape wars in Syria and other countries.

Hundreds of migrants spent the night on what they're now calling their "freedom train," and they are refusing to budge, reports CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata from Bicske, Hungary. What may have been seen as a plan to get rid of the refugees in Budapest has seriously derailed, he says.

Shouting "Germany" and "freedom," the migrants-turned-protesters showed little willingness Friday to give up and hand themselves over to Hungarian police, who seem just as determined to wait this one out.

Hundreds of refugees broke through a police baricade at the Bicske station and began running west down the tracks toward the Austrian border -- more than 80 miles away. Police were only able to catch a small number of the group and herd them back onto the trains. An Associated Press reporter said at least 200 had fled in a large group, running down the tracks.

French news agency AFP reported Hungarian police had temporarily shut down one border crossing with Austria.

The drama began when desperate migrants packed onto the first train they could at the Budapest station Thursday. They thought, or hoped, it would be bound for Germany, or that direction.

But 45 minutes outside of the capital, the train came to a stop. Riot police were waiting.

It was a trap.

When police started pulling migrants off, others realized what was happening and refused to go. A woman with a baby pleaded not to be taken away. In the melee, and in despair, a man they were traveling with grabbed them both and the baby fell onto the tracks.
At one point, the baby's head lay on the railway line. Police wrestled to control the man, then dragged him away.

CBS News got on the next train out. Though that train traveled almost two hours, close to the Austrian border, its trip ended in the same manner.

There to meet us were dozens of Hungarian police and lines of buses, to herd the migrants to refugee camps.

For Yusef and his family from Aleppo, Syria, it felt like the end of the line.

"They are pushing us like animals," Yusef said, crying.

"I have three babies," one mother said. "They will die if we stay there in Syria. They will die. We come here to save their life."

Source: CBS News

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