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Danish motorway closed after refugees swarm in

Xinhua, September 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

A 29-km stretch of highway on the Danish island of Lolland was closed late Monday after hundreds of refugees heading to Sweden swarmed into the country over the weekend, local police said.

"It is for safety reasons to protect the people who go along the highway," the South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police was cited by Danish news agency Ritzau as saying.

The Sydmotorvejen highway from Sakskoebing to Roedbyhavn in southern Lolland has been closed from 8 p.m. local time.

It is unknown how long the closure will last and motorists were told to find alternates routes.

Meanwhile, police warned on social media that one should drive carefully on the road from Paramaribo to Sakskoebing as a group of migrants and refugees have left the highway to walk this way.

"We will do everything possible so that the closure will last as short as possible," police said in a statement.

According to Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, some 800 migrants and refugees arrived in Denmark from Austria and Germany since Sunday and the figure is expected to rise.

Nevertheless, the majority of the migrants and refugees do not want to submit an application for asylum in Denmark as they will not have the right to bring family members during the first year of arrival in the country.

Many of them have already said that they planned to travel further on to Sweden, where there is more loose migration policies compared with Denmark.

"We have not introduced a border control, so everyone who passes the Danish border can be registered. Given that people come to Denmark but will not stay here, it is our authorities' task to keep an eye on it," Rasmussen told a press conference after an emergency meeting with other parliamentary parties on Monday.

The prime minister stressed that the Danish authorities, including the police, have handled refugee pressure on "a dignified manner" in which there is no tumult or coercion.

The Danish authorities have also arrested three suspected smugglers in connection with the migration. Endit