Authorities record 4,079 illegal entries at southern border

Budapest, September 13 (MTI) – Hungarian authorities reported that 4,079 illegal entrants, among them 1,026 children, were caught at Hungary’s southern border with Serbia on Saturday. This is the highest number so far in one day, local police spokesman Szabolcs Szenti said on Sunday. Most of the illegal entries were recorded at the Roszke crossing point, he said.

Hundreds of new migrants started walking along the tracks from the southern border point in Roszke late on Saturday, MTI’s correspondent said from the site.

Authorities failed to convince the group, made up mainly of families, to board buses which were to take them to registration points. Later, the group separated, some of the migrants walked towards the city of Szeged while the others, about 60 people, agreed to board the buses after they were stopped by police. Some of the other migrants who arrived in Szeged early on Sunday also agreed to be transported to the collection points.

Two men were apprehended near Szeged for driving 11 undocumented Syrian nationals in their cars towards Budapest. Another car was also stopped with eight Syrian illegal entrants inside, Szenti said.

Ten Hungarian and one Romanian national were also apprehended for human smuggling near Kecskemet, central Hungary. Their vehicles were carrying 135 migrants altogether, Zoltan Hurkecz, the local police spokesman told MTI.

More than 2,000 migrants were reported to leave Keleti station in Budapest by train to the Hungarian-Austrian border.

Several hundred migrants arrived on Sunday at the registration point in Kormend, in the northwest, the spokeswoman of the regional police said. Eniko Kazmar said most of the migrants took off for Austria within a few hours.

Fifty cars driven by private Austrian individuals arrived in Hungary to transport about 180 refugees from the city of Gyor, in the northwest, to Vienna on Sunday morning.

Elhadj As Sy, the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, visited the Roszke collection point on Sunday and thanked volunteers for their work. He told journalists that everyone should do their utmost to help support the arriving migrants. He said it was a “humanitarian catastrophe” that so many people were forced to leave their homes.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters