By Mike Corder And Dusan Stojanovic The Associated Press
ASOTTHALOM, Hungary Small groups of migrants continued to sneak into Hungary on Wednesday, a day after the country sealed its border with Serbia and began arresting people trying to breach the razor-wire barrier, while migrants began arriving in Croatia seeking a different way into the European Union.
Hungarian authorities said they have arrested a total of 519 migrants who tried to cross the border illegally since tough new laws went into effect on Tuesday that make it a crime to cross the border from Serbia. Authorities launched 46 criminal prosecutions and the first court cases are due to start later Wednesday.
Televised images from a courthouse in Szeged showed four of those being charged with their hands tied in front of them and their shoelaces removed ahead of trial.
While the tough new measures have mostly stopped the flow across the border, isolated groups still managed to crawl under or climb over the forbidding barbed wire of the 175-kilometre (110-miles) border fence.
In the last few months, Hungary has become a main entry point into the European Union for migrants, many of them war refugees from the Middle East, with more than 200,000 entering the country so far this year. Almost all entered from the southern border with Serbia and passed through Hungary quickly on their way to Germany or other wealthy Western European nations.
Hungary’s foreign minister denied that closed borders and tough new laws signal callousness toward refugees, repeating the government’s claim that most of those entering Hungary are actually economic migrants.
“Based on our history, we are always in solidarity with the refugees,” Peter Szijjarto told The Associated Press in an interview. “What we’re saying is that we cannot accept economic migrants because we cannot bear the burden of that.”
Early Wednesday, police on horseback surrounded a group of 14 Afghans, including five young girls and an elderly woman, in a field close to the fence. As they watched over the group, the officers’ radio crackled with news of other migrants being detained ‚Äî one Syrian, one Afghan, a group of 11.
Along the fence early in the morning, there was evidence of how it has been breached, though it was not clear when it happened. In one spot a carpet still covered three rolls of razor wire.
Small groups of young men also walked along roads leading away from the border. One asked a passing reporter: “Is this the way to Budapest?”
Most of the migrants who had hoped to cross into Hungary were still trapped along the border in Horgos, Serbia, however. Many were confused about whether to keep waiting or to try to enter the EU through Croatia, a longer and less direct path into Western Europe.
“I don’t know what to do ‚Äî stay here or try some other way to cross the border,” said Ahmed Sami from Syria. “We walked and travelled for hundreds, thousands of kilometres only to be stopped meters from the European Union. My wife and children cannot stand on their feet any more. This is tragic.”
At the border, people hid from the blazing sun by sitting in bushes, slept under parked cars, or inside small tents. Children and babies cried while men walked for kilometres (miles) to the nearest shops to buy water and food.
“We are staying at the border in Hungary until they open,” said Ahmed Rashid Yousef, who fled Syria. “We are feeling hungry and feeling angry. We are suffering.”
Most hope to reach Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has said it expects some 800,000 refugees to arrive in Germany this year alone. The vice chancellor has said the number could even reach 1 million.
One refugee from Syria pleaded with a Hungarian policewoman over the razor wire fence: “Please let me go. Merkel said OK we can come to Germany, why Hungary say no?” he said.
Other migrants were seeking new paths on their way to Western Europe, some choosing to take the longer route through Croatia.
About 150 people crossed into Tovarnik, Croatia, early Wednesday after they were bused to the Serbian border town of Sid on an all-night ride from Macedonia.
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic criticized Hungary’s decision to seal its border with Serbia for migrants and said Croatia will not do the same.
“We are ready to accept these people, regardless of their religion and the colour of their skin, and direct them to the destinations where they wish to go, Germany and Scandinavia,” Milanovic told lawmakers in Parliament.
“Barbed wire in Europe in the 21st century is not an answer, it’s a threat,” Milanovic said.
Dozens of police and aid workers waited for the migrants in Croatia, where they are being registered. Local media say some migrants have sought to cross into Croatia through nearby fields to avoid registration.
Migrants have avoided Croatia in the past because they must still go into Hungary or Slovenia before reaching Austria or Germany.
Elsewhere in Europe migrants remained on the move.
Greek police said about 5,000 refugees and migrants crossed the country’s northern border with Macedonia in the 24 hours from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, Austria began selective controls of vehicles at three main border crossings with Hungary as it tries to impose some order over the stream of people.
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Stojanovic reported from Horgos, Serbia; Vanessa Gera, Pablo Gorondi and Alex Kuli in Budapest, Hungary; Darko Bandic in Tovarnik, Croatia; Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia; and George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.
