HORGOS, Serbia -- Hungary stiffened its resistance on Tuesday to an influx of migrants from Serbia, while more people drowned trying to reach Europe by boat and diplomats kept struggling to address the Continent’s refugee crisis.| The Hungarians are not equipped to handle this situation. They have a long history of being occupied one way or another and don't like the implications of hundreds of thousands of people using their country as a transit station. |
| The Serbs don't want the refugees either. Funny that... |
Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said Hungary was setting up a “transit zone” along the border with Serbia, where arriving migrants would be stopped before officially entering Hungary. Only those who have already applied for asylum would be allowed through; the others would be turned back to Serbia. The zone appeared to be a way to get around rules limiting the number of people Hungary could deport to Serbia each day.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Hungary said 48 migrants in the transit zone had applied for asylum, with 13 rejected and the rest under review — a tiny fraction of the number of migrants at the border.
Hungarian officials said they were preparing to erect a fence along the country’s eastern border with Romania that would be similar to the one on the Serbian border.
Speaking from the border village of Horgos, Serbia’s labor minister, Aleksandar Vulin, told the Serbian broadcaster B92 that the situation could “spiral out of control.” He called for Hungary to open the border and for refugees to be allowed to seek asylum in Hungary. He said that migrants were arriving from all directions and that 1,000 were stranded “in no man’s land.”
Mr. Vulin said Serbia would provide food, water and transportation to temporary shelters, but he added that the crisis could not be solved without Hungary’s cooperation.
Migrants stuck at the border threatened on Tuesday to conduct a hunger strike. About 200 migrants chanted “Open, open, open!” and “Germany! Germany!”
| Andrea Merkel opened Pandora's box. Now she has to pay and she's not happy. |
The Hungarian restrictions were beginning to have an effect on other countries. The Austrian authorities said they were preparing for the likelihood that migrants would seek to bypass Hungary and enter Austria via Croatia and then Slovenia. The Austrian Army was set to deploy 2,200 soldiers to patrol the borders, primarily in the eastern state of Burgenland, which borders Hungary and shares short borders with Slovenia and Slovakia.