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 United Nations has told member nations of the European Union (EU) that they must accept 200,000 migrants in a “common strategy” rather than their current “piecemeal” approach.
The head of the UN’s refugee agency said that the EU is reaching a “defining moment.”
Antonio Guterres said that the EU leadership must demand “mandatory participation” of any country in the EU.
Germany has been taking in the majority of the migrants but is starting to limit migrant access because of the mass influx.
“Germany is doing what is morally and legally required of us, no more and no less,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday. “That’s why this problem concerns all of us in Europe.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron said that because “Britain is a moral nation” they will fulfill their responsibilities.
Germany and France have sent a proposal to all EU nations with suggested amounts of migrants for each country but has found backlash from the smaller nations. CNN reported over 350,000 migrants have come into Europe this year, a level not seen since World War II. Over 3,600 people have died trying to make the journey.
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.
