Croatia to allow refugees to pass into western Europe

Sky News has witnessed a pregnant woman being stretchered from the scene, a young boy being carried away with tear gas in his eyes and scores of other panicked migrants fleeing the riot police.

Earlier on Tuesday, main official border crossing point between Serbia and Hungary was closed to refugees by the Hungarian authorities.

Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the decision to call a state of emergency was made at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.

“More than 500,000 migrants were detected at EU borders in the first eight months of this year after a fifth consecutive monthly record was registered in August when 156,000 crossed the EU borders”, a Frontex statement said, adding “there were 280,000 detections” at EU borders last year. “Even until now, Hungary’s border should not have been crossed at any other place except the border crossings”, he said.

“Time is running out”, Merkel warned, urging an end to the squabbling that has flared since eastern members flatly refused to accept EU-set quotas for taking in tens of thousands of refugees.

Under the legislation, those who damage the 4 meter (13 foot) high fence on Hungary’s 175km (110 mile) border with Serbia or cross illegally can be imprisoned or deported.

Hungarian law enforcement agencies have arrested more than five dozen refugees for attempting to illegally enter the border with Serbia by breaching a razor-wire fence.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Wednesday denied that closed borders and new laws signal callousness toward refugees, repeating the government’s claim that most of those entering Hungary are actually economic migrants.

“The measure is necessary as people-smugglers may change their routes because of the existing fence on the Hungary-Serbia border, hence a part of the immigration pressure may get directed towards Romania“, he said, according to state news agency MTI.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference that “this problem can only be solved together”.

Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, on Tuesday said he supports the idea of cutting European Union funding to countries that refuse to share the burden of hosting refugees.

Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are among the states opposed to the idea.

“This route will not take you to your destination, ‘” Gyorgy Bakondi, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief adviser, told AFP.

Germany’s controls, which effectively suspended a system of borderless travel within Europe known as Schengen, have forced the cancellation of trains from Austria and caused a build-up of people across the border in the city of Salzburg, where the authorities said roughly 1,400 migrants were waiting.

Meanwhile, the global Organisation for Migration is predicting more deaths in the Aegean Sea and increased strains on Greece because of European Union “indecision” about how to handle an influx of migrants and refugees to Europe.

Germany introduced temporary border controls Monday while Austria said it was to tighten checks and began deploying troops to help deal with arrivals.