German police report the arrival of 12,200 migrants at Munich on Saturday as city officials warned it is "the upper limit" of what they can take even though the number is well short of the 40,000 refugees that authorities have predicted will come.
So far on Sunday, federal police spokesman Simon Hegewald says more than 700 people have arrived and says there's no estimate for the number of arrivals through the day.
"We have reached the upper limit of our capacity," he said.
Munich, in Germany's southern Bavaria state, has been the entry point for the mainly Syrian refugees who have sought to escape war and economic distress. Migrants from places such as Afghanistan and Eritrea in east Africa are also on the move. Munich is stretched to the limit to accommodate and house them, according to the mayor.
"We no longer know what to do with refugees," Dieter Reiter was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.
As the BBC reports: "More than 4,000 people walked across the border with Serbia - the most so far in one day - just as the authorities in Hungary were completing preparations to seal the frontier."
Demonstrations for and against the migrants have been staged in several European cities. In some, people carried signs reading "Refugee lives matter" and other placards simply stated "go home."
As The Associated Press notes "many ... fear that Muslim arrivals will threaten their jobs and security."
On Monday, European Union is scheduled to meet in Brussels to discuss ways to handle the sudden influx of migrants. The EU is said to be considering a quota system that would have member states agreeing to take in and settle a specific number of them.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis has renewed a call urging Catholics to open parishes to shelter refugees.
Last week, Austria experienced an influx of migrants, most coming from Hungary en route to Germany. But Hungary shut down the train link on Thursday.
Reuters reports:
"Only 50 people crossed the [Austrian] border early on Sunday morning, but Hungarian authorities had said more were on their way and numbers could climb to 500 an hour, a spokesman for the Austrian police said. "Based on recent experience, the Austrian authorities were expecting 6,000-8,000 new arrivals through the day, the spokesman added."
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