
Denmark says it will no longer stop migrants travelling freely through the country if they didn't want to seek asylum there.

The announcement comes after police were forced to close road and rail links with Germany to prevent thousands of refugees from trying to reach their preferred destination of Sweden.

Danish police chief Jens Henrik Hoejbjerg said his officers 'can't detain foreigners who do not want to seek asylum in Denmark.'

The decision appeared to contradict the Danish political line, although there was no immediate reaction from the government.

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Danish police escorted more than 300 Syrian and Iraqi refugees from a motorway near the German border as they try to reach Sweden

The migrants forced the closure of the main E45 motorway near Kliplev having arrived from Germany

Danish police officer plays with a migrant girl after a group of refugees tried to walk on the E45 motorway from Padborg, on the Danish-German border, towards Sweden

The migrants told police that they wanted to continue through Denmark to claim asylum in Sweden

Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen insisted on Monday that refugees arriving in Denmark ought to be registered and have their asylum requests processed there.

Under European Union rules, people seeking asylum should do so in the first EU country they enter and not travel from one country to another.

In one incident yesterday, around 300 refugees, including large numbers of women and children, set off on foot for Sweden, forcing police to shut the motorway near Padborg for a several hours.

The migrants had been housed in an old school building after arriving in the town but took to the road, saying they wanted to travel north to Sweden.

Some elderly migrants called off their 180-mile trek to Copenhagen, the jumping-off point for crossings by bus, train or car to Sweden.

Bedding down: Migrants sleep inside Flensburg train station in Germany after all services were halted between Germany and Denmark

Police asked the state-owned railway to suspend all services between Germany and Denmark until further notice due to the influx of migrants

Refugees board a train at the train station in Flensburg, which was the first to leave after services resumed

AUSTRIA SUSPENDS RAIL SERVICES TO HUNGARY TO COPE WITH INFLUX Austrian Railways suspended all services between Hungary and Austria today as it struggled to cope with flow of migrants over the border. A statement from the company the move was due to 'massive overcrowding' of trains coming from Hungary. The suspension covers both Railjet intercity trains between Vienna and Budapest and regional cross-border services, it said. The statement says trains will continue to run from Nickelsdorf to Vienna. Hungary's train operator said meanwhile that its trains were only running as far as Hegyeshalom near the Austrian border. Advertisement

Danish police also asked the state-owned railway to suspend all services between Germany and Denmark yesterday until further notice due to the influx of migrants. Some resumed today.

A busy ferry crossing also remains closed to trains, a day after hundreds of migrants refused to disembark from services arriving from Germany, Denmark's southern neighbour, demanding to continue on to Sweden instead.

The refugees refused to register with Danish authorities, which would mean having to apply for asylum in Denmark or returning to Germany, preferring instead to seek asylum in Sweden, where asylum conditions are more generous.

Sweden, one of many European countries struggling with the worst migration crisis since World War II, has become a top EU destination for refugees by issuing permanent residency to all Syrian asylum seekers.

In contrast, Denmark has sought to reduce the influx by issuing temporary residence permits, delaying family reunions and slashing benefits for newly arrived immigrants.

Train operator DSB said in a statement that services to Germany running through the border town of Padborg would run as normal Thursday while the ferry crossing remained closed to trains 'due to police work at the borders'.

The announcement came after two trains carrying around 350 refugees spent Wednesday stuck in Rodby, on Scandinavia's busiest ferry crossing to Germany, around 135 kilometres southeast of Copenhagen.

Police met migrants getting off a train from German in Rodby, Denmark who want to continue to Sweden

The migrants have told Danish authorities they do not wish to register until they get to Sweden

HUNGARY'S 'STATE OF CRISIS' Hungary's Interior Ministry has proposed the declaration of a 'state of crisis due to mass migration' as of September 15, based on bills passed last week, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said on Thursday. The proposal will be the first item to be discussed at a government meeting on September 15, Janos Lazar told a weekly news conference. The new bills make crossing a border fence which is under construction a criminal offence and allow authorities to fast-track the assessment of asylum applications at the border. Advertisement

After lengthy negotiations, around 100 of them agreed to remain in Denmark and lodge their asylum request there.

The 240 or so others were allowed to disembark late Wednesday without police intervening.

'Where they have gone I don't know. I think they were picked up by private cars or have taken taxis further away.

'We are no longer monitoring them,' police commissioner John Andersen told news agency Ritzau.

'We didn't want to empty the train by force,' he added.

Meanwhile, ferry operator Scandlines announced that only passengers travelling by car would be let aboard ferries between Rodby and Puttgarden in Germany.

The ferries usually carry both cars and trains.

Denmark is part of the EU's Schengen zone, where borders are meant to be open to allow free movement.

When asked by Reuters yesterday whether blocking the road and rail links meant breaking with the Schengen system, a police spokesman he did not think so as he expected traffic to start moving again soon, although he could not say when.

Police spokesman Carsten Andersen said: 'We know that many of them want to go to Sweden, but naturally we cannot let that happen,

'So right now, we have asked them to start a dialogue. We are waiting patiently for some of them to agree to that and stick their heads out of the trains.'

Justice Minister Soren said he was cutting short a trip to the United States to return to Denmark.