Migrant crisis: Hungary declares emergency at Serbia border
15 September 2015
From the section Europe
Hungary has declared a state of emergency in two southern counties as tough new laws to stop migrants entering illegally came into force.
Police can now detain anyone trying to breach a razor-wire fence built on the border with Serbia.
The EU is facing a huge influx of migrants, many fleeing conflict and poverty in countries including Syria.
A boat carrying migrants from Turkey to Greece sank on Tuesday, leaving 22 people dead, Turkish media reported.
Starting on Tuesday, the EU has agreed to relocate 40,000 migrants from Greece and Italy to other EU states. But it has yet to agree on mandatory quotas for a further 120,000 asylum seekers.
The new Hungarian laws came into effect at midnight (22:00 GMT Monday).
Police sealed a railway crossing point that had been used by tens of thousands of migrants, and many slept out in the open on the Serbian side of the border.
Around midday there were tense scenes as hundreds streamed towards the fence, some searching for a way through and others starting a sit-down strike, throwing down food and water in protest at not being granted passage.
The state of emergency gives police more powers, and allows for the deployment of troops, pending parliamentary approval.
Police buses will now take asylum applicants to registration centres, but if their applications are refused they will now be returned to Serbia rather than being given passage through Hungary, the BBC’s Nick Thorpe reports from the border.
Hungarian authorities said more than 9,000 – a new record – crossed into the country before the border was closed on Monday, and that the total number arriving this year had risen above 200,000. Some 20,000 crossed into Austria.
From Tuesday, anyone who crosses the border illegally will face criminal charges, and 30 judges have been put on standby to try potential offenders.
The laws also make it a criminal offence – punishable by prison or deportation – to damage the newly-built four-metre (13ft) fence along Hungary’s 175km (110 mile) border with Serbia.
Mounted police have been deployed along the border.
At the scene: BBC’s Nick Thorpe in Roszke, Hungary
As darkness fell on Monday night, a locomotive and a single wagon unloaded coils of razor wire on the barrier across the railway, and those migrants who were unable to cross set out on the 12km walk to Kiralyhalom, the next border crossing point.
The previous day, I drove the same section and counted 17 points at which the fence had been breached.
If the fence does prove too difficult to cross, many people may loop round to cross through Hungary’s still almost unguarded borders with Romania (450km) or Croatia (350km).
Will Hungary’s clampdown work?
Afghan boy’s lonely start in Germany
What next for Germany’s asylum seekers?
Caring for solo child refugees
Crisis explained in graphics
“We will start a new era,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said shortly after midnight. “We will stop the inflow of illegal migrants over our green borders.”
But he added: “That also means that the official and legal ways to come to Hungary and therefore to the European Union remain open. That’s all we ask from all migrants – that they should comply with international and European law.”
At the Brussels talks, ministers said a majority of states had agreed in principle to the idea of relocating a further 120,000 through mandatory quotas, and there was hope the proposal could be finally approved at a meeting on 8 October.
The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary were reportedly among the nations opposed to the quotas.
“There was no consensus, several countries disagreed,” Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said after the talks.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Tuesday there should be ways of “exerting pressure” on states that refused binding quotas, possibly by reducing the amount of EU funding they receive.
EU states also agreed in principle to a list of safe countries to which failed asylum seekers can be returned – a measure that would speed up deportations.
Germany introduced temporary border controls on Monday. That slowed down the passage of migrants from Austria, where about 2,000 people slept in railway stations overnight.
Austria – one of several EU countries to say it would tighten border controls – is starting to deploy hundreds of troops to help the police deal with migrant arrivals.
The moves are a challenge to the EU’s Schengen agreement on free movement, although the rules do allow for temporary controls in emergencies.
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