Austria: Refugees board Munich-bound trains in Vienna

Refugees embarked trains bound for Munich at Vienna's Hauptbahnhof on Sunday following a gruelling journey from Hungary the day before. Volunteers were waiting by the trains, passing out essential supplies to refugees. One train has been earmarked exclusively for refugees and will depart the Austrian capital as soon as it is full; other trains bound for Munich will depart as per the normal Sunday schedule. Some 5,000 people arrived in Austria 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 the morning with many sleeping in the train station overnight. In the meantime, volunteers set up a camp at the station distributing food and medical supplies 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 from where they were transported to Vienna. 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.