BUDAPEST, Hungary—Hundreds of migrants chanted defiant slogans outside Budapest’s main international railway station Wednesday as Hungarian police blocked them for a second day from seeking asylum in Germany and other European Union countries to the west.
“What we want? Peace! What we need? Peace!” a few hundred migrants chanted outside Keleti station, the new focal point for continent-wide tensions over the unrelenting flow of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa fleeing war, persecution and poverty.
Hungary’s police said in a statement they intend to reinforce their positions outside the Keleti terminal as the volume of migrants arriving from Serbia continues to grow by the hour, with an estimated 3,000 already encamped near the station.
They said officers working jointly with colleagues from Austria, Germany and Slovakia also were searching for migrants traveling illegally on other Hungarian trains and described the security push as compatible with the EU’s policy of passport-free travel.
The private Dogan news agency says a boat carrying 16 people sank in international waters after leaving from the Turkish resort of Bodrum early Wednesday. Seven aboard drowned while four were rescued. Hours later, a second boat carrying six migrants sank off the coast of Bodrum, and a woman and three children drowned, the agency said.
Greece’s coast guard says an overnight search operation involving at least two ships and a helicopter ended happily when three people missing at sea were picked up by a fishing vessel.
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