Off the wire
• UNHCR urges comprehensive response ahead of EU Interior ministers meeting  • Update: Greece calls for urgent, coordinated EU action after 34 migrants drown  • Defense, investment top Nigerian president's visit to France  • Two new low budget thrillers top American box office  • Somali youth vows to rebuild homeland after pursuing medicine in China  • Interview: Civil society in Greece fills gaps left by state and EU in refugee crisis: activist  • 2nd LD Writethru: 7 killed, 50 injured in central Pakistan's suicide attack  • 15 militants killed in airstrike in NW Pakistan  • Pieters claims victory at KLM Open  • Xinhua Asia-Pacific news summary at 1630 GMT, Sept. 13  
You are here: 　 Home

Austria temporarily halts train services to Germany

Xinhua, September 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) has temporarily suspended train services to Germany at the request of Germany's rail service, the OeBB announced Sunday.

The halt in rail traffic is to last for 12 hours, and be lifted at 6:00 am local time on Monday morning. Local media reported by 18:00 no more trains had passed from Salzburg, Austria, across the immediate border into Germany.

The move came as Germany temporarily reinstated border controls with Austria on Sunday under the weight of massive numbers of asylum seekers wishing to enter the country via Austria.

Around 2100 police officers from the German state of Bavaria have been sent to the border to check on travel papers, which travellers must be carrying with them, to more quickly determine if an asylum claim is possible.

Austria is currently only conducting spot checks on arrivals from Hungary, triggering fears that a backlog of up to tens of thousands of asylum seekers planning to travel onward to Germany could now become stuck in Austria unless it too tightens entry conditions.

At 19:00 Sunday evening a train with 500 asylum seekers arrived in Salzburg from Vienna, with a further 1,500 reportedly on trains on the way. It is currently assumed they will be divided up into various living quarters overnight.

Austria and Germany are set to hold a crisis meeting over the asylum seeker issue in Berlin on Tuesday. Endit