Amnesty: Austria failing refugees

Amnesty's Austrian branch accused the wealthy nation on Friday of failing to uphold binding international standards for asylum-seekers - although it could "easily" do so - at Traiskirchen, near Vienna, its main center for new arrivals.

"Austria is neither in financial misery nor in a situation of resource shortfalls: The failings in refugee care would be easily avoidable; the causes lie primarily in administrative failings," said Heinz Patzelt, Amnesty Austria's general secretary (pictured left).

Austria's main intake center at Traiskirchen, a town 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the capital but in Lower Austria state, was temporarily closed in late July as its numbers reached 4,500 - double its official capacity.

Most asylum-seekers, fleeing violence in hotspots such as Syria and Iraq, arrive via Serbia and Hungary, which is building a fence along its border.

Alarm widespread

Amnesty's condemnation follows reports of miserable conditions for asylum-seekers arriving on Greek islands and even recently in Berlin's Moabit precinct, where last week hundreds waited in stifling summer heat to lodge applications.

Daniela Pichler, who led the Amnesty inspection at Traiskirchen on August 6, said her team found 1,500 people - including those pregnant and women with babies - were forced to wait for hours outside in summer heat to obtain identity papers.

"Even a simple numerical waiting system would have been a significant improvement," said Pichler (pictured middle).

Unaccompanied children and youths, who arrived alone, had received no adequate assistance. "Many of them are still without a roof over their heads," Pichler said.

Inhumane facilities

Toilets were in a terrible condition, and often overflowing with excrement, said Amnesty's medical expert Siroos Mirzaei (pictured right).

Four center medics had been preoccupied with carrying out control checks during arrivals - instead of being able to treat those ill, Mirzaei said.

"The people had to wait sometimes even for days until they were treated. As a result, serious medical complications could eventuate," he added.

Rapid reorganization demanded

Amnesty presented a series of demands, including a rapid legal reorganization in the allocation and housing of asylum-seekers within Austria, and provision of special measures for victims of torture as well as for elderly and young refugees.

"It is totally inappropriate and shameful that, for example, a 12-year-old boy is given shelter but separated from his father, with the end result that both prefer to sleep out in the open than stay apart," Patzelt said.

Intolerable, says UNHCR

Two weeks ago, the Lower Austria provincial authority for Traiskirchen ordered a stop to further intakes at the overcrowded center after UN refugee representative Christoph Pinter described the situation as "intolerable, dangerous and inhumane."

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said Austria's government wanted the country's constitution changed to give it federal authority to provide shelter for asylum-seekers on federal property. The move follows repeated refusals by leaders of Austria's nine provincial states to accept migrant quotas.

Leitner described the Traiskirchen situation as "no longer sustainable" and accused individual states of dragging their feet in providing extra accommodation.

Pröll blames asylum-seekers

Lower Austria's state governor, Erwin Pröll, who, like Mikl-Leitner, belongs to Austria's conservative OVP People's Party, claimed that many registered persons at the main center had failed to present themselves for health check-ups.

Pröll said a nine-member medical team had not been able to make an accurate appraisal in July, leaving a "residual risk from a medical point of view."

Austria, a country of 8.5 million people, received more than 28,000 asylum requests in 2014. It expects 75,000 asylum-seekers to arrive by the end of this year. Between January and June alone, Austria counted 28,300 new requests.

Germany's de Maizière calls for standardized care

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière on Friday told German public ZDF television that asylum-seekers should get assistance in the form of groceries and clothing instead of financial grants such as pocket money.

Varying practices in neighboring EU countries, for instance that asylum-seekers in the Federal Republic would be given more than the minimum wage salary in Albania, prompted would-be applicants to head for Germany, he said.

"That means that we need a debate about European standards of human dignity and the provision [of assistance], de Maizière said.

He conceded that human dignity provisions proscribed in Germany's asylum legislation foresaw monetary grants totalling up to 359 euros per month for a solo adult asylum-seeker after registration.

Those rules for the basics of daily life were "relatively tight," he said.

He said he expected Germany's prognosis for this year of 400,000 new arrivals would need to be corrected upwards, but declined to speculate on the widely reported number of 600,000.

Despite a spate of xenophobic hate crimes, including arson attacks on refugee shelters, newcomers have been welcomed in Germany by an unprecedented volunteer movement.

ipj/glb (AFP, dpa, epd)