Snubbed by Merkel, German politician sends refugee bus home

A bus that carried 31 Syrian refugees to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in protest returned on Friday to the small town that organised the road trip widely condemned as a political stunt.

The Bavarian district chief behind Thursday's journey to Berlin, Peter Dreier, had called it an "act of desperation" as his southern rural area buckled under the strain of a mass influx that brought 1.1 million migrants to Germany last year.

The coach had arrived on Friday evening after a 570 kilometre (350 mile) trip outside the chancellery building of Merkel, who declined to send her staff to negotiate with the provincial official.

Berlin city representatives instead went on board and offered the group of men emergency accommodation for a night.

In absurd scenes, some 100 journalists, as well as a sprinkling of anti-Merkel protesters, stayed in a throng around the coach for two hours, while tense-faced Berlin and Bavarian officials negotiated inside, and refugees watched the TV cameras with anguished expressions.

In the end, the bus left with a police escort, and Dreier told the press he was disappointed Merkel's people hadn't come to talk to him.

He said he would pay for a night in a hotel for the group, out of his own pocket.

On Friday morning, the bus was back on the road to Bavaria, to the southern town of Landshut, which had organised the high-profile trip — with the refugees inside described as angry and disappointed.