VIENNA — Hundreds of refugees from the Middle East, who had boarded trains in Hungary, moved westward through Austria as tighter controls around their route delayed rail and road traffic between the two countries.

Several groups of migrants arrived Monday evening at Vienna Westbahnhof, where some of them were steered onto trains headed away. Austrian and Hungarian authorities earlier stepped up controls for suspected people smugglers after 71 migrants died last week in a truck abandoned on the highway connecting Budapest and Vienna.

Refugees arrive from Budapest at the main train station in Vienna on Monday. Austrian officials stopped some trains because they were overcrowded.

Thousands of protesters demonstrate through the streets of Vienna on Monday after 71 migrants recently suffocated to death inside a lorry on a highway near Parndorf. The banner reads, “Refugees welcome.”

“We’re tightening controls in the border region and along the known trafficking routes massively since yesterday,” Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said in a statement. “We’re countering the reckless smuggling mafia that showed its darkest side with even tougher measures.”

European governments are struggling to formulate a response to the flow of refugees from countries including Syria and Afghanistan through the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Hungary and most former communist nations refuses to allow migrants in, while Germany and France lead a group of governments emphasizing the need for a humanitarian response.

Austrian and Hungarian police rounded up five suspected traffickers and about 200 refugees that crossed the border from Hungary as controls were tightened on the roads linking the countries, said Karl-Heinz Grundboeck, a spokesman of Austria’s interior ministry.

The road checks caused a traffic jam stretching dozens of kilometers on the Hungarian side of the border, according to state-run Utinform, which provides traffic updates in Hungary. Hungarian and Austrian police are coordinating the operation.

Austria’s state railway OeBB earlier halted three Germany- bound trains from Budapest because they were overcrowded, spokesman Michael Braun said. Austrian railway officials called Hungarian police to clear out the overloaded train in the Hungarian border town of Hegyeshalom, and they entered Austria several hours later than scheduled, he said. Some refugees then boarded regional trains to Vienna, the Austria Press Agency reported.

Refugees seeking asylum and without a visa have to remain in the country where they have been received while their application is reviewed, according to European and international law. Hungary said it’s observing the rules of the EU’s Schengen border regime.

“Schengen isn’t a game, there are rigid rules and these serve to protect the idea of a borderless Europe,” Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said.

The EU is struggling to forge a common policy. Hungary on Monday blamed Germany’s decision to not send back Syrian refugees to other EU countries for undermining European immigration rules. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reiterated that any system of quotas is “mistaken” and urged the 28-nation bloc to halt migration outside its borders, the state-run MTI news service reported.

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