Austria Refugee Center to Refuse New Arrivals
Austria's largest refugee center will no longer accept new arrivals from Wednesday due to massive overcrowding and political infighting over a recent influx of migrants.
Treatment in the center is "inhumane" and "unacceptable", said Erwin Proll, head of the regional government in Lower Austria where the center is located.
Speaking to public radio on Tuesday, he blamed other regions for failing to take their quota of refugees, and the Chancellor Werner Faymann for failing to take steps to resolve the situation.
The Traiskirchen refugee center in the south of Vienna, currently holds three times its recommended population of 480 following an influx of Syrians fleeing civil war in their country.
Syrians now make up 40 percent of the people at the center.
"Neither the mayor, nor the regional authorities, nor myself can accept responsibility for the eventual catastrophe, for example a fire," he said in explaining the need to stop taking new arrivals.
Refugees have become a political football in Austria -- causing friction between the central and regional administrations as well as sparking divisions within the coalition government in Vienna.
Faymann called on the regions to fill their quotas but there has been little sign they are willing to meet the demands.
There are also mixed signals from the central government, with Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner saying that disused military barracks could be used as temporary shelters for refugees, while Defense Minister Gerald Klug has said the government would have to buy the barracks before they are used.
The debate has benefited the far-right Freedom Party, which is leading recent polls after a strong performance in May's European elections. It supported Proll's decision to refuse new arrivals at the refugee center and called for a tougher asylum system.
Source: Agence France Presse
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