Summary Migrants who had been registered at refugee centres in Hungary would be returned to Budapest
VIENNA (AFP) - Austrian security forces stopped a Munich-bound train Monday with several hundreds migrants on board near the border with Hungary, a police spokesman said, just hours after authorities in Budapest let them leave despite many not having the right visas to travel in the EU.
Those migrants who had already been registered at refugee processing centres in Hungary would be returned to Budapest, while the others would be allowed to continue their journey, police spokesman Roman Haslinger told AFP.
"There are roughly 300 to 400 migrants on board. They are being taken off the train," he said, and their papers will be checked.
The migrants, many from Syria, formed part of around 2,000 people who had been stuck for several days in makeshift refugee camps at train stations in Budapest.
Police had previously prevented them from leaving even if they had valid train tickets and papers, because they did not have the required visa to move around the European Union s passport-free Schengen zone.
But on Monday there were no security forces present as the migrants rushed to get on trains leaving for Vienna, Munich and Berlin from Budapest s Keleti station.
People were running along the platform to catch an Austria-bound train scheduled to leave at 1110 GMT, with some helping to lift a woman in a wheelchair into a carriage.
There were confusing scenes as a Hungarian railway employee initially refused to allow the train to leave, saying it was packed beyond capacity and some people did not have the right papers to travel.
But the train eventually departed with a 20-minute delay.
Under current EU regulations, known as the Dublin provision, asylum-seekers must remain in the first European country they enter while their application is being processed.
Those who travel to other member states face deportation back to the EU country they originally entered.
Hungary has become a frontline country for migrants arriving via the western Balkans route as they flee war and unrest in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
