Germany is turning back a growing number of migrants at its border with Austria, Austrian authorities said on Monday, in an apparent knock-on effect of Sweden and Denmark tightening frontier controls.
“The daily number of migrants being turned back has risen from 60 in December to 200 since the start of the year,” David Furtner, police spokesman in Upper Austria state, told AFP.
He said those being sent back were migrants mostly Afghans as well as Moroccans and Algerians who did not want to apply for asylum in Germany but in other countries, notably Scandinavia. Austria is a major transit country for the hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees seeking to enter the European Union, mostly via Upper Austria state at a rate currently of 1,000-2,000 per day.