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Over 10,000 refugees stranded in Serbia: UNHCR

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A child waits in the rain on the Serbia-Croatia border, October 19, 2015. (AFP/File)

A child waits in the rain on the Serbia-Croatia border, October 19, 2015. (AFP/File)

by ITN

More than 10,000 refugees are currently stranded in Serbia because of restrictions imposed by countries further away in western Europe, according to the UN refugee agency.

“We can only say that there are more than 10,000 refugees in Serbia,” UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic was quoted by Reuters as saying from the Serbian-Croatian border.

“It is like a big river of people, and if you stop the flow, you will have floods somewhere. That’s what’s happening now.”

Sunjic said there was a shortage of food and blankets. “We are missing everything,” she said.

Hungary declares state of emergency over refugee influx

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Police arrest almost 10,000 people for illegally crossing border with Serbia, as tough new asylum laws come into force.

Refugees waited on the Serbian side of the border between Serbia and Hungary after authorities closed the crossing [EPA]

Refugees waited on the Serbian side of the border between Serbia and Hungary after authorities closed the crossing [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

The Hungarian government has declared a state of emergency to cope with the influx of refugees, as almost 10,000 people were arrested on Monday for illegally crossing the border from Serbia, police said.

On Tuesday, police also detained at least 60 people claiming to be Syrian and Afghan refugees after they illegally crossed the border with Serbia, police spokeswoman Viktoria Csiszer-Kovacs said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has indicated that asylum requests from refugees trying to enter Hungary from Serbia will be rejected because Serbia is a safe country where refugees do not risk war or persecution.

Meanwhile, Serbia was talking to the Hungarian government about the buildup of refugees on their frontier, a Serbian government minister said, adding Budapest would “have to open the border”.

Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s minister in charge of tackling the refugee crisis, did not elaborate.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said on Tuesday that it is likely that thousands of refugees will simply divert their route now that Hungary has closed its border with Serbia.

“We’re definitely in touch with different countries on contingencies and UNHCR is ready to move and assist different countries as best we can,” Fleming said.

“It’s going to be just as much a struggle as it has been for Macedonia and Greece.”

Over 200,000 refugees have reached Hungary so far in 2015, nearly all by walking across the southern border with Serbia.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Roszke on the Hungary-Serbia border, said there were more soldiers and policemen than there were refugees at the crossing.

“We had heard that in the last 20 minutes there were a couple of dozens that crossed this way. They were probably going to the official border crossing which is about 2km from here.

“Although we understand from local officials that at that crossing, they are not letting refugees come into Hungary.

“There are at least a few hundred refugees begging authorities at that crossing point to let them to cross over into Hungary,” Jamjoom said.

On Tuesday, fewer refugees crossed into Austria from Hungary on Tuesday after Budapest started to clamp down on the flow through the Balkan peninsula to the richer countries of northern and western Europe, Austrian police said.

On Monday, the last day before Hungary sealed off its Serbian border with a razor wire fence, a record 15,700 people arrived in eastern Austria via the border town of Nickelsdorf.

“Yesterday 15,700 people crossed the border here at Nickelsdorf making it a day of record numbers. The night was a bit quieter,” Helmut Marban, from the regional Burgenland police, told Reuters news agency.

“We have had around 1,800 people from midnight until now,” adding that he did not expect the flow to ease despite Hungary now having closed its border with neighbouring Serbia,” he said.

Some 2,500 people spent the night in tents at the Austrian border, which had been set up by the country’s army.

Hungarian police said on Tuesday that two crossings on the border with Serbia have been closed to all traffic as stricter rules about the entry of migrants are applied.

“Since 12:30 the Hungarian border to Serbia has been closed. This means that no new migrants will be crossing the border there,” Marban said.

“But it is the case that we think that many thousand people were still on the go in Hungary before the border closed and they will surely make their way to Nickelsdorf here in Austria and try to continue their journey to Germany”.

Record number of refugees enter Hungary from Serbia

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More than 2,000 refugees crossed frontier on Monday, just days before Hungary completes a border fence.

After crossing Serbia, refugees enter Hungary to continue their journey to western and northern EU countries [EPA]

After crossing Serbia, refugees enter Hungary to continue their journey to western and northern EU countries [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

A record number of refugees streamed into EU member Hungary from Serbia, police said, just days before Hungary completes a border fence.

A total of 2,093 potential asylum seekers, the highest ever daily total, crossed the border near the Hungarian town of Roszke, a police statement said on Monday.

They were part of a wave of around 8,000 refugees whose journey to the European Union had been blocked last week when Macedonia declared a state of emergency and closed its borders after being overwhelmed by the huge influx of people, amid Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Many refugees said they had passed through Serbia after travelling through Macedonia’s border with Greece.

“We were stopped in Macedonia for two days, the riots were terrible, police used guns and tear gas, I saw an old woman beaten, her money and papers taken,” a 29-year-old IT engineer from Mosul in Iraq told the AFP news agency.

Al Jazeera’s Djordge Kostic, reporting near the border with Hungary, said an estimated 1,500 refugees are currently staying at 28 shelters set up by the UN and Russian-Serbian aid organisation in the city of Kanjiza.

He said the refugee situation at Kanjiza is “better organised” than in other parts of Serbia.

“There water, food, toilet and shower stalls provided to them. They even have Wi-Fi,” he said.

From there, the refugees can proceed to Horgos, about 12-km away, where they can take the train to Hungary, our correspondent said.

Meanwhile,Al Jazeera’s Aljosa Milenkovic, reporting from Presevo on the Serbia-Macedonia border, said more refugees were likely to come, “putting to test the region’s ability to cope with the large number of people transiting through”.

The latest movements came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Fracois Hollande called for a unified system for the right to asylum, and the setting up of reception centres in Greece and Italy.

The issue is set to top the agenda at a summit of Balkan leaders on Thursday, which Merkel will attend.

Razor-wire fence

Hungary has registered more than 100,000 asylum seekers so far in 2015, over double the total for all of last year. In 2012, the figure was just 2,000.

The numbers have sharply increased to around 1,500 a day in August, after Hungary’s conservative government announced it would build a razor-wire fence along its southern border with Serbia.

In recent days, refugees have entered Hungary alongside a cross-border train track near Roszke, one of the few sections of the border with Serbia not yet blocked by three rolls of razor-wire, which the government says will completely seal off the border by August 31.

The fence is one of several measures making it more difficult for refugees to enter and stay in Hungary. The government is also tightening asylum laws, introducing penalties for illegal border-crossing, and the planned closure of permanent refugee camps.

About 102,000 “migrants” entered the EU via Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro or Kosovo between January and July this year, versus just 8,000 for the same period in 2014, according to EU border agency Frontex.

The number of refugees now making their way from Greece towards the EU is worrying many EU politicians and has left the Balkan countries struggling to cope with the humanitarian crisis.

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