Coronavirus checks cause travel chaos at European borders
Border restrictions aimed at slowing Europe’s coronavirus pandemic have led to travel chaos at crossings in the continent’s east, with the German Red Cross warning of an “alarming humanitarian situation.”
Trucks had to wait for 30 hours at Poland’s Jedrzychowice crossing at the German border, while passenger cars faced 16-hour delays, Joanna Konieczniak from the Polish border guard told dpa on Wednesday.
On the German side, police reported a tailback of around 60 kilometres
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The German Red Cross sent around 90 helpers overnight to the German-Polish crossing near the eastern German city of Goerlitz to assist drivers waiting in their vehicles.
“In our view, it is an alarming humanitarian situation,” Red Cross spokesman Kai Kranich said.
Many families are among those who have been waiting in traffic for up to 20 hours, he added, warning that there were no toilets or food for those stranded.
“We handed out warm and cold drinks and blankets because it was a cold night,” Kranich said.
Poland temporarily reintroduced border controls on Sunday.
On the Polish-Czech border, the waiting time in the morning also stood at 20 hours in the city of Cieszyn/Cesky Tesin.
Vehicles were also backed up on Poland’s border with Lithuania for hours.
In response, Poland decided to allow car traffic at four pedestrian border crossings to ease the transport bottleneck. Additionally, several new crossings were opened on the borders with the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
In Austria, the traffic jam grew to 30 kilometres at a key crossing into Hungary, one day after Budapest closed its borders, according to Austrian police.
The traffic jam started to build in the morning after the Hungarian government had opened the border temporarily overnight to let through thousands of Romanians and many Bulgarians who wanted to drive home from Western Europe via Hungary.
However, this so-called “humanitarian corridor” only applied to nationals from these two countries. Hungary did not let in others, such as Ukrainians or Serbians.
Austrian authorities have set up a provisional camp for stranded travellers.
After the so-called “humanitarian corridor” was closed again at 5 am (0400 GMT) on Wednesday, only Hungarian nationals and cargo truck drivers were allowed to pass.
EU transport ministers are due to conduct a video conference to address the issue of border restrictions later Wednesday.(dpa)
