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Austria to shift 500 asylum seekers to Slovakia temporarily

Xinhua, July 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Austrian Ministry of the Interior has confirmed Thursday it will shift 500 asylum seekers from its overcrowded Traiskirchen processing center to neighboring Slovakia.

The ministry stressed the decision would only involve care for the refugees, with actual asylum application processing to continue to be carried out by Austrian authorities, with an approved application meaning a return to Austria.

The 500 refugees will stay in Slovakia from July to September, and will stay at a university building in the municipality of Gabcikovo, near the border with Hungary.

Austria and Slovakia will share the costs involved, meaning the process will become cheaper for Austria, said Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. The agreement with Slovakia is expected to be signed within the next few days.

The move has come under criticism from both Amnesty International, who according to a Kronen Zeitung newspaper report expressed "disgusted horror" at the decision, and the Austrian Greens Party, which also sharply criticized the measure, calling it "asylum dumping in Europe." Endit