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Austria shuts motorway near Hungary as migrants walk to Vienna

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Austria shut its A4 motorway near the Hungarian border for security reasons on Friday morning as dozens of migrants made their way towards Vienna on foot, a spokesman for police in the eastern province of Burgenland said.

Around 8,000 people crossed the border into Austria on Thursday and a further 3,600 had crossed since midnight, he said, adding that he expected numbers to match Thursday`s levels throughout the day.

A witness saw hundreds of people crossing the Hungarian border into Austria on Friday morning, walking in the middle of the road.

“Around 1,500 people have spent the night outdoors,” the police spokesman said. Authorities were operating 30 buses and were trying to move people “to where they can continue their journey”, he added.

Hungary has been transporting tens of thousands of refugees towards the Austrian border in the past week, most of whom use Austrian trains to continue towards Germany and other northern European countries.

“We have cost the human-trafficking mafia at least 50 million euros ($56 million),” Christian Kern, the head of Austria`s railway company, OeBB told Format magazine when asked about the costs of transporting refugees through Austria. “It was absolutely worth it.”

OeBB on Thursday stopped its rail service from and to Hungary due to overcrowding of trains and platforms and is due to decide within hours whether to reopen it again.

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