Wednesday 9 September 2015
Photo: An asylum seeker carrying a baby is stopped by Hungarian police officers as he tries to escape (Reuters: Marko Djurica)
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Several hundred asylum seekers have broken through police lines at Hungary's main border crossing with Serbia for the second day in a row, leading to a tense standoff during which police used pepper spray on one occasion to move a group off a main road.
Key points:
- Several hundred asylum seekers broke through police lines
- During a tense standoff ensued police used pepper spray to contain the crowd
- Police persuaded the group to be transported to refugee registration camps
The series of breakouts took place on Tuesday local time at a police collection point near the border crossing at Roszke, the first stop on the Hungarian side of the border with Serbia.
The collection point is used to hold people before they are taken to a registration camp nearby.
Some 300 asylum seekers, part of a group of 1,500 people waiting for hours at the collection point, bolted past police through a cornfield onto a train track, to walk to the nearby city of Szeged.
Police later managed to persuade the group to be transported to refugee registration camps around the country.
Later, several hundred more asylum seekers broke out of the collection point in various groups, and walked around a kilometre along a main road.
A tense standoff ensued, during which police used pepper spray to contain the crowd before transporting them by bus back to a registration camp at Roszke.
Photo: Refugees are accompanied by police officers after breaking out from the migrant collection point near Roszke. (AFP: Attila Kisbenedek)
Hungary continues building fence despite criticism
The disturbances were the latest in a series of incidents on European Union member Hungary's southern border with Serbia, a major entry point into the European Union for asylum seekers fleeing war and misery in the Middle East and Asia.
Asylum seekers as Germany's saviour
Germany may have found a solution to the problem of its ageing population as asylum seekers continue to arrive, writes Andrew McCathie in Berlin.
On Monday, some 300 people pushed past a police line at the same collection point, with scuffles erupting throughout the day as the migrants chanted "Freedom!"
After marching some 15 kilometres along a motorway they eventually agreed to be taken back to the registration centre by bus.
More than 165,000 migrants have crossed into Hungary so far this year.
Most seek to travel on to Germany via Austria.
Hungary recently completed construction of a razor-wire barrier along its 175-kilometre frontier with Serbia, but it has failed to stop large numbers of people getting through.
It is currently building an additional four-metre fence despite widespread criticism, with France's foreign minister saying the barrier does "not respect European values".
Photo: Police used pepper spray to contain the crowd before transporting them by bus back to a registration camp at Roszke. (AFP: Attila Kisbenedek)
AFP
