Hungary’s PM: Aid Syria’s neighbors so migrants stay away

Remarks underscore divisions in Europe

Hungary’s hard- line prime minister highlighted stark divisions in Europe over a growing migrant crisis, telling a German newspaper in an interview published Saturday that refugees entering the continent should go back “where they came from.”

Meanwhile, tens of thousands rallied Saturday on the streets of London, Madrid, Athens, Budapest, Lisbon, Warsaw, Geneva and Sweden in support of a solidarity movement supporting the refugees. Around 14,000 assembled in Hamburg in support of migrants and another 30,000 in Denmark, according to European media.

Germany welcomed 10,000 migrants into the country Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in an interview with Bild, argued that rather than opening borders to a flood of largely Syrian refugees, the European Union should create a $ 3.4 billion aid package for Turkey and Middle East nations to improve camps that are the first stop for families fleeing war.

“There is no fundamental right to a better life ( in Europe), only a right to security and human dignity,” Orban said.

In remarks to the German magazine Der Spiegel published Saturday, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann compared Orban’s crackdown on migrants to Nazi racial policies.

“Refugees stuck in trains in the belief that they would go somewhere else entirely brings back memories of the darkest period of our continent, Faymann told the magazine. “To divide human rights by religions is intolerable.”

Orban argued that large numbers of arriving Muslims threaten Europe’s “Christian culture.”

Over 380,000 migrants have flooded into Europe this year, according to the U. N. refugee agency, UNHCR. An estimated 2,860 have died in the process, many drowning while being smuggled in rickety vessels across the Mediterranean. The largest share — nearly 260,000 — have crossed the Aegean Sea to Greek islands off Turkey, the UNHCR said.

Those refugees have overwhelmed Greek services on the island of Lesbos where between 50,000 and 122,000 have arrived, according to the U. N.

CHRISTOPHER FURLONG, GETTY IMAGES Migrants struggle with an elderly woman Saturday as they cross from Roszke, Hungary, into Serbia. Migrants rushed to leave due to fears that borders would soon close.