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8 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 2 SEptEmbEr 2015 News Hungary closes Budapest train station to refugees refugees protest outside railway station in the Hungarian capital after police sealed off terminal to stop them travelling to other EU countries The hungarian government yes- terday closed Budapest's main station to refugees following chaotic scenes on Monday, when people who had been camped outside for weeks were suddenly allowed to leave for neighbouring Austria and Germany without visa checks. hundreds of refugees, mostly Syrian, chanted "Germany, Ger- many" and waved train tickets after being forced to leave Keleti station in Budapest. hungary is trying to restore or- der and enforce eU rules, officials said. This came after German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the fair distribution of refu- gees across europe. The closure of the station to ref- ugees appeared prompted in part by pressure from other eU coun- tries trying to cope with arrivals from hungary. Austrian police said 3,650 refugees arrived in the Austrian capital, Vienna, from hungary on Monday, with most heading for Germany. Austria's chancellor, Werner Faymann, did not hide his fury towards hungary's prime minis- ter, Viktor Orban, calling on him to ensure the refugees were reg- istered before allowing them to travel over the border. hungarian officials had earlier appeared to abandon efforts to register them under eU rules, which say they should seek asy- lum in the first eU country they enter. hundreds of refugees demon- strated outside the station, de- manding that it be reopened to them and they be allowed to trav- el on to Germany. having seen the end of journey in sight, they bought tickets at around €100 per person, only to be denied entry on Tuesday morning. "Why have they sold us return tickets? We are refugees, we are one-way," said Mohammed, who had travelled from Damas- cus with his uncle and cousins. "These people are thieves." Rafir Kozma, 30, from Syria, said "I came here and they bought a ticket for three people to Munich, it was €370.20. My train was at 7am this morning and the police didn't let me into the station, and after you see what happened." There were chaotic scenes at railway stations in Germany on Tuesday as around 2,000 refugees arrived on trains from hungary overnight, with police saying that thousands more were expected on trains throughout the day. Police in their hundreds at sta- tions in Munich and Rosenheim in Bavaria were escorting pas- sengers – mostly from Syria, but also from Iraq, Afghanistan and eritrea – off the trains. exhaust- ed, and dehydrated after long journeys, they were then being taken to reception centres across Bavaria. Many who arrived in Vienna on Monday travelled on to Salzburg, on the border with Germany, where they spent the night in the railway station and were looked after by charity organisations. Fewer than 10 of about 3,600 people who arrived in Austria had applied for asylum there, the au- thorities said. The rest said they wanted to go to Germany. The number of refugees enter- ing europe has reached record levels, with 107,500 arriving in July alone. Germany expects to take in 800,000 asylum seekers this year – four times last year's total. Berlin has already said it is sus- pending the Dublin rule for Syr- ians who have travelled to Ger- many. Some 1,400 people had arrived in Munich, southern Germany, by Tuesday morning, after trav- elling across Austria, and more were due. A child bites into an apple outside a train station in Budapest UN confirms destruction of Palmyra temple ISIS destruction of palmyra's temple of bel revealed in satellite images SATellITe images have con- firmed that Islamic State (ISIS) has largely destroyed yet another ancient temple in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the United Nations said. There had been earlier reports of an explosion in Palmyra, which is held by militants and Syria's antiq- uities chief had earlier said the ba- sic structure of the 2,000-year-old site was intact. But UN satellite analysts Unosat said the image shows almost noth- ing remains. A picture taken on 27 August clearly shows an erect, rectangular structure surrounded by columns, while a shot taken on Monday showed there was little left besides a few columns in the very outer edges of the site. It is the second temple that ISIS has attacked in the Roman-era city this month. last week, the group detonated explosives in the an- cient Baal Shamin temple, an act that the cultural agency UNeSCO called a war crime aimed at wiping out a symbol of Syria's diverse cul- tural heritage. ISIS militants have carried out a sustained campaign of destruction against heritage sites in areas under their control in Syria and Iraq. The jihadists consider the ancient tem- ples and sculptures as heretical. The sale of looted antiquities is one of the group's main sources of funding. It has also been accused of destroying ancient sites to gain publicity. Authorities removed hundreds of statues and priceless objects before ISIS tightened its grip on Palmyra earlier this year. last month, the group beheaded the 82-year-old Syrian archaeolo- gist who had looked after Palmyra's ruins for four decades and hung his body in public, according to Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's an- tiquities chief. The world-famous Greco-Roman ruins of Palmyra are in the desert north-east of the Syrian capital, Damascus. The Temple of Bel is dedicated to the Palmyrene gods and was one of the best-preserved parts of the ancient city. Syrian government forces have sought to drive ISIS out of the Palmyra area in recent months and there has been fierce fighting in nearby towns. Before ISIS' arrival, the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra survived hundreds of generations of human civilisation