Hungary declares state of emergency over refugee influx

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]

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.

“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.

“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”.