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IMMIGRATION

Thousands offer time and money to help refugees

The city of Vienna says it has been flooded with offers from members of the public to help donate time and money in support of refugees.

Thousands offer time and money to help refugees
Caritas Wien

As large numbers of volunteers welcomed refugees and migrants arriving at Westbahnhof on trains from Hungary this week with bottles of water and food, the city's refugee coordinator says there have been over 1000 offers to help.

Around 3,650 refugees and migrants arrived in Vienna on Monday, the largest number to ever arrive in Austria in one day, after authorities in Budapest allowed people who had been camping outside the station for days to board the train.

The NGO Caritas was overseeing the distribution of donations on Tuesday, the numbers of which had reportedly been overwhelming, and said by the afternoon no more were needed.

“Something is happening in the city,” says refugee coordinator Peter Hacker, who runs the platform “fluechtlinge.wien” where people are lodging their offers of time and money.

“There were hundreds of letters arriving from members of the public who wanted to support and encourage refugee policy in the city.”

The platform, which was only launched online in August, has since received 1,200 offers from volunteers wanting to dedicate some time to helping the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

“Everything helps, even if it is only two hours in the week,” Hacker said, adding that their offers of help were directed on to different organisations working in this area.

The platform brings together different areas of refugee aid, from volunteering time to accommodation places. There have been around 100 offers of space in apartments for people to sleep, which experts are examining at the moment.

“This ranges from a single place in a shared apartment to a complete place,” Hacker said, who could not confirm yet how many would turn into actual accommodation places for refugees.

20,000 protest against treatment of refugees

He was speaking following a larger-than-expected demonstration of 20,000 people that took place in Vienna on Monday in support of refugees.

Many protesters were welcoming refugees and calling for a more humanitarian approach to migrant policy.

The protest was organised after the grim discovery of the bodies of 71 refugees, including four children, were found in an abandoned truck in Austria last week, having suffocated while being smuggled into Europe.

Interested in volunteering your time or money? The Local Austria featured an article in August outlining four ways people can help refugees in Austria.

FAR-RIGHT

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner has been banned from entering Germany, it emerged on Tuesday, days after he was deported from Switzerland.

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Sellner, a leader of Austria’s white pride Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X, formerly Twitter, reading out a letter he said was from the city of Potsdam.

A spokeswoman for the city authorities confirmed to AFP that an EU citizen had been served with a “ban on their freedom of movement in Germany”.

The person can no longer enter or stay in Germany “with immediate effect” and could be stopped by police or deported if they try to enter the country, the spokeswoman said, declining to name the individual for privacy reasons.

READ ALSO: Who is Austria’s far-right figurehead banned across Europe?

“We have to show that the state is not powerless and will use its legitimate means,” Mike Schubert, the mayor of Potsdam, said in a statement.

Sellner caused an uproar in Germany after allegedly discussing the Identitarian concept of “remigration” with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at a meeting in Potsdam in November.

Reports of the meeting sparked a huge wave of protests against the AfD, with tens of thousands of Germans attending demonstrations across the country.

READ ALSO:

Swiss police said Sunday they had prevented a hundred-strong far-right gathering due to be addressed by Sellner, adding that he had been arrested and deported.

The Saturday meeting had been organised by the far-right Junge Tat group, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views.

The group is also a proponent of the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory espoused by Sellner’s Identitarian Movement.

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