Migrants arrive in Hungary in record numbers

For some the aim is to go further north through Macedonia and Serbia, to try to get to the border with Hungary. Police ran blood tests on them for alcohol levels.

Hungary’s lobbying group for migrants, Migszol, said the country’s effort to ship newcomers to holding centers seemed pointless given the lack of space at the facilities, some of them former Soviet army bases. “That’s why we left Syria”, one Syrian man heading for the Hungarian border told AFP yesterday.

Serbian authorities are temporarily offering shelter, food and medicine to more 8000 migrants in two refugee camps in southern municipality of Preshevë and expects more to come mainly through Macedonia. “We are so exhausted, frankly”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also heckled by several anti-refugee protesters in an eastern town of Germany over the weekend. Merkel urged Germans to stand up against hatred and vowed zero tolerance for attacks against refugees.

“We speak about desperate people, we don’t speak about criminals and terrorists”, Vucic said.

More than 100 jeered and sounded vehicle horns as Merkel spoke in Heidenau.

– August. 25: Hungarian security forces fire teargas to prevent around 200 migrants trying to leave the EU country’s main refugee processing center at Roeszke near the Serbian border. He added that this is a challenge for the European Union as a whole but that a number of states, Hungary included, do not want to deal with it.

European leaders were spurred to action in April after more than 700 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean.

He spoke as officials announced that 2,533 migrants had been detained in Hungary on Tuesday, breaking the record of 2,093 set on Monday.

“While understanding legitimate concerns facing countries in the region – obviously this is an unexpected large number of people – we do appeal to the governments involved to implement border management measures with humanity and also in accordance with global obligations”. Hungary’s government has started to construct a 175km-long fence on its border with Serbia to halt a massive flow of migrants.

– June 17: Hungary closes its border with Serbia, which is not an EU member, and plans to build a wall four meters high, with work starting on July 13.

Ahead of the Western Balkans Summit in Vienna, the European Commission on Wednesday said it was releasing an additional 1.5 million euro in humanitarian funding to assist refugees and migrants in Serbia and Macedonia.

Swedish coastguard spokesman Mattias Lindholm said the Poseidon had been able to save 439 people on the wooden boat. Because it’s hard to imagine that someone whose survival instinct has enabled them to overcome hunger, thirst, abuse and violence of all kinds just to reach Europe, will then be put off by a metal barrier.

State Secretary of Justice Robert Repassy said procedures for handling migrants would also be made faster and more efficient.

Moellebakken said Thursday they believe “it is organized to some degree” with people in Russian Federation selling bikes to refugees hoping to reach Norway, a non-member of the European Union Scandinavian, to seek asylum.

Greece’s coast guard said Wednesday that it had rescued 578 people in 15 incidents at sea near the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Kos from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning. Pablo Gorondi from Budapest, Hungary, Lorne Cook from Brussels, Frank Jordans from Berlin and Dusan Stojanovic from Belgrade, Serbia, contributed.