Austria: Refugees awake ahead of next leg to Munich

Refugees awoke at Vienna's Westbahnhof train station, Sunday after spending the night in the premises ahead of the next leg of their journey to Munich. A Munich-bound train reserved for refugees is due to depart the Austrian capital as soon as it is full. Some 5,000 people arrived in Vienna on Saturday, crossing the border from Hungary. Many went on to take trains to Munich. However due to overcrowding, thousands were left stranded in Vienna until Sunday morning. In the meantime, volunteers set up camp at the station distributing food and medical aid to those in need. Thousands of refugees set-off on foot from Budapest on Friday evening, after being refused access to westbound Hungarian trains. The group walked for hours before a convoy of buses, sent by the Hungarian government, took the refugees to the Austrian border. Hungarian authorities had taken radical measures in early September to deal with the unprecedented numbers of people crossing their borders, many without documentation. Firstly, they closed the main station, shutting off access to trains leading to Austria, Germany and other European destinations. This led to a temporary encampment being set up around Keleti station, housing around 3,000 refugees. When the station re-opened, many boarded trains that were destined for processing and detention camps, not other countries as they thought.