Hungarian police have used tear gas and water cannons to drive Syrian migrants away from the now closed Hungarian-Serbian border.
The migrants responded by throwing rocks, bottles and other projectiles at the police.
The Hungarian government closed the border on Tuesday and made it illegal to either enter the country or to damage the new razor-wire fencing at the border. Serbia’s foreign ministry said that Hungary has actually closed the main border crossing between the two nations for 30 days.
Hungary also announced the fact-tracking of trials for migrants who have been arrested for illegally entering the nation.
Serbia has protested the firing of tear gas into their territory.
The same time that Hungary has shut down the borders of their nation, Croatia has said they will allow migrants to cross through their land to make their way to other EU nations.
“We heard that Hungary was closed so the police told us we should come this way,” Amadou, 35, from Mauritania told AFP news agency. “We don’t know what we should do now. Do we have to catch a boat?”
The EU’s border agency says the total number of migrants entering their borders has passed 500,000. Only 280,000 entered the EU throughout all of 2014.
A plan championed by Germany to force all members of the EU to take a certain amount of migrants or pay financial penalties collapsed after arguments within the EU leadership.
The prime minister of Hungary, who has been at odds with many european leaders about the mass influx of migrants, is vowing to seal his nation’s border and keep the migrants from illegally entering or passing through his country.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban told reporters that if any migrants attempt to enter the nation except through a designated area, they will be arrested and imprisoned.
“I’m therefore asking those who want to cross into Europe through Hungary: don’t come,” Orban said. “Even though the situation won’t change overnight, we will gradually achieve results and the time will come when we can tell our Austrian and German friends that Hungary’s southern borders are hermetically sealed.”
The move by Orban comes as leaders of Germany and France are pushing a proposal through the European Union where all nations either accept part of the 160,000 migrants in Greece, Hungary and Italy or pay a fee to be temporarily excluded from being forced to take the migrants.
The influx of migrants has become so intense that the Greek island of Lesbos, which has 100,000 residents, is holding 20,000 migrants.
Germany has said they will take 40,000 of the 160,000; France says they will accept 31,000.
Some nations, such as Slovakia, have said they do not want to accept Muslims into their country but will be open to migrants of other faiths.
The leader of Hungary, which has been struggling with an influx of thousands of refugees from the Middle East, says the problem is a “German problem” because that’s the destination for most of the immigrants.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban added, however, that he would not allow migrants to leave his country without registering.
“Nobody would like to stay in Hungary, neither in Slovakia nor Poland nor Estonia,” Orban said. “All of them would like to go to Germany. Our job is only to register them.”
The comments from the country’s leader comes as the country’s train station in the capital city of Budapest was reopened to migrants. However, the trains that migrants board only travels to a registration center and not to Germany or other European Union (EU) nations.
Many of the migrants are resisting efforts to leave the trains at the registration center in Bicske and are having to be removed by police.
German officials have previously stated they expect to take in over 800,000 migrants this year, four times the number from last year. However, they are calling for “fair” distribution of the current migrant influx to all EU nations.
Emergency meetings to discuss the situation between EU leaders is scheduled for mid-month.
As tensions continue to swell in Europe over the mass influx of migrants from the Middle East, the photos of a young boy who drowned while attempting to make the journey is causing outrage across the continent.
At least 12 Syrians died when the boat they were using to reach Greece sank in the Mediterranean Sea. The bodies of the victims washed up on the beach including that of a young boy which a Turkish news agency then published and pushed into social media with the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsnlik, which means “humanity washed ashore.”
Five of the 12 dead are children.
“When mothers are desperately trying to stop their babies from drowning when their boat has capsized […] Britain needs to act,” British Labour Party member Yvette Cooper told the BBC.
Meanwhile, migrants are still protesting outside the train station in Budapest, Hungary where officials are continuing to deny them access to trains to other parts of the EU.
Greece has reported an increase in migrants of 50% in just the last week and have already absorbed more migrants this year than all of last year.
The European Union has an emergency meeting scheduled for September 14th to address the crisis.
Migrants flooding into Hungary have begun rioting over the government’s decision to close a train station in Budapest, keeping them from streaming into Germany.
Police erected a blockage at the city’s main train terminal as about 1,000 migrants chanted “Germany! Germany!” Later the protesters sat down in front of the barricaded entrance.
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told the BBC that the country was enforcing the EU’s immigration laws.
The EU has a rule called the “Dublin Regulation” which requires all refugees to register for asylum in the first EU nation they enter. Because Italy and Greece are overwhelmed with hundreds of thousands of migrants, many skip those checkpoints and travel to other EU nations.
“Dublin rules are still valid and we expect European member states to stick to them,” a German interior ministry spokesman said.
EU leaders have already approved measures to help Greece and Italy with registration of migrants and are looking at ways to streamline the process of immigrants coming to other EU countries.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Icelandic residents have called on their government to welcome refugees into their country as way to escape the violence of the Middle East.
Hungarian officials are rushing military troops to their border to try and stop a massive wave of migrants attempting to escape the violence of the Middle East and Asia.
Hungarian officials said that a record 2,533 migrants were arrested attempting to enter the country on Tuesday. Most of them were from Syria, Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Officials are calling the situation the worst migrant crisis since the second World War and Hungary is attempting to quickly build a 110 mile border fence with razor wire to stop the illegal immigration.
“Hungary’s government and national security cabinet … has discussed the question of how the army could be used to help protect Hungary’s border and the EU’s border,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told reporters.
The move by Hungary is coming under criticism from Germany and France. The German and French governments are working to put together a comprehensive plan for all nations across Europe to accept migrants, but Hungary’s actions are countering the proposed actions.
Other nations are also overwhelmed. Greece, which is in the midst of financial crisis unlike any other in the nation’s history, has been burdened with 50,000 migrants in just the month of July.
Budapest, Hungary is facing historic flooding of the Danube River that is driving thousands from their homes after heavy rain across central Europe.
The river is expected to crest at 29.5, just a foot below the river’s flood fences at 30.5 feet. The previous record high was 28 feet in 2006. At least 1,200 people from 28 towns have been forced to leave their homes. Continue reading →