Refugees on train, police in 2nd day of standoff in Hungary
By Associated Press
Sep 4, 2015 2:41 AM CDT
A woman looks out of a train that was stopped in Bicske, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. Over 150,000 peoplel have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)   (Associated Press)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Refugees hoping to move on from Hungary stubbornly remained on a stalled train Friday, refusing to go to a center where authorities are demanding that they register.

Police remained on watch at Bicske, a town northwest of Budapest that holds one of the country's five camps for asylum seekers — facilities the migrants want to avoid because they don't want to pursue asylum claims in economically depressed Hungary. Nearly all hope to go to Germany.

The head of police border control, Col. Laszlo Balazs, said 16 people voluntarily checked into the asylum center on Thursday, while about 500 others refused.

In Geneva, the head of the U.N. refugee agency called for the European Union to take "urgent and courageous measures" to deal with the crisis.

Agency chief Antonio Guterres said refugees should benefit from a mass relocation program and called for authorities to crack down on human smugglers.

His comments Friday came a day after a round of recriminations among EU leaders. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said the human wave is a German problem, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the obligation to protect refugees "applies not just in Germany, but in every European member."

Orban has warned European partners that he intends to make his country's borders an impassable fortress for new arrivals. His chief of staff, Janos Lazar, said 160,000 migrants had reached Hungary this year, 90,000 of them in the past two months alone.

"We Hungarians are full of fear," Orban told a Brussels news conference, warning that the acceptance of so many Muslims from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere would erode Europe's Christian character.

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