InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

Berlin, Germany – Munich is at the limit of its capacity to receive refugees arriving en masse in Germany, police warned Sunday, a day after 12,200 asylum-seekers reached the city.

Germany’s transport minister on Sunday hit out at the “complete failure” of the European Union to protect its external borders, as he called for measures to halt a record migrant influx.

“Effective measures are necessary now to stop the influx. That includes help for countries from where refugees are fleeing and also includes an effective control of our own borders which also no longer works given the EU’s complete failure to protect its external borders,” Alexander Dobrindt said in a statement.

“We had a total of 12,200 refugees on Saturday… today we’re expecting several hundreds. Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a police spokesman.

“Our aim today would be to transport as many as possible out of here, to make place for new arrivals,” he said.

Munich has become a key arrivals point for refugees traveling to Germany by train through Hungary and Austria.

Last weekend, about 20,000 migrants arrived at the city’s main railway station.

The president of the Upper Bavaria region, Christoph Hillenbrand said he did not know “how we can cope”, according to the Bild am Sonntag tabloid which headlined its article “Munich at the brink of collapse”.

Bavarian public television BR said the city “came very close to a humanitarian disaster”, although authorities managed to limit the numbers of people sleeping on mattresses on the floor to just a few dozens, rather than the hundreds as earlier feared.

Authorities are mulling whether to open up the Olympiahalle — a stadium used for the 1972 Olympics and which today serves as a concert hall or sports arena — as a temporary shelter for the refugees.