As announced yesterday the Deutsche Bahn closed down their international services until October 4th heading/coming to/from Austria/Budapest to handle the influx of refugees (as officials stated). This leads to a situation at Munich central station that is quite bizzare compared to the occurences during the last three weeks. As refugees were let through by Hungary and not held back under critical humanitarian circumstances 10 thousands of refugees arrived at Munich Central station. Now traditionally the two weeks before october the worldwide known Oktoberfest is held in Munich. Officials like the minister of the interior of Bavaria Mr. Herrmann already stated “their concerns” about refugees being confronted with a mass of drunk people. Now Deutsche Bahn – probably in collaboration with the Bavarian government – has stopped all incoming trains refugees were using to pass the border. Border controls have been reinstated.
Yesterday I decided to visit Munich Central station to actually document if there were still any refugee arrivals. I found a central station with quite many drunks, but no refugees at all. DB security – as documented below – controls everybody that does not fit into the “Oktoberfest guest” schema.
#racial #profiling am #hauptbahnhof in #münchen – alle die nicht ins #oktoberfest bild passen werden kontrolliert pic.twitter.com/CpEt4J305u
— 24mmjournalism (@24mmjournalism) 22. September 2015
The lanes where refugees used to await their registration and spread across Munich are empty. Volunteers are still awaiting new arrivers – but there are none.
This picture of a city that stops its “humanity” to host 6 million drunks makes me sad an angry – the crisis is not over, refugees are just stuck at the borders once again awaiting a possibility to keep on moving.
Pictures of the “empty” central station:
Of course the pictures are available for licensure with my agency here: http://www.demotix.com/news/8623182/deutsche-bahn-service-suspended-no-more-migrant-arrivals-munich