OVER 83,000 people have signed up to support the march through London to Downing Street on Saturday called by Solidarity with Refugees.
The march will assemble at 12pm at Marble Arch on Saturday September 12th. The call to welcome all refugees from Syria and other war zones was put out on Facebook by Ros Ereira and Abdulaziz Almashi.
The march is supported by the Syria Solidarity Movement, the Refugee Council, Refugee Action and Amnesty International. Solidarity with Refugees said: ‘We have to ensure that refugees can reach Europe safely. There needs to be either official safe transport provided, or if people could apply for asylum from outside the EU they would be able to enter by official routes.
‘We can’t allow any EU countries to close their borders or build fences. There needs to be Europe-wide consensus on providing help where it is so desperately needed, relieving pressure on the Mediterranean countries. We will be gathering at Marble Arch on September 12th. There will be a large banner leading the march, welcoming refugees.’
A petition calling for Britain to take more refugees has received more than 400,000 signatures, four times the amount needed for the issue to be considered for debate by MPs. Crowds of German people welcomed Syrian and Iraqi refugees at Munich’s main station on Saturday night, lining up behind police barriers to clap, cheer and distribute sweets to welcome the refugees to their new home.
At Frankfurt railway station overnight Saturday, food, water and clothes were piled high for the newcomers, while hundreds of people thronged the platforms. When the doors of the trains opened yesterday, people cheered and whistled and a chant went up in English: ‘Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here.’
Volunteers in a convoy of around 140 vehicles set out from Vienna for Hungary on Sunday to distribute aid to a wave of migrants and collect refugees to bring back to Austria. Onlookers again chanted ‘Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,’ as the vehicles set forth from outside a football stadium. People taking part ran the risk of violating laws on human trafficking, police threatened, but officers were on hand just to provide security and guide traffic.
Kurto Wendt, an Austrian organiser of the campaign, said he was not scared of being arrested in Hungary. ”Everyone would really be crazy if they arrest people who support what they have decided politically, namely to let people move on to Austria. The risk that we are taking is so small compared with what the refugees are going through,’ he said.
