More than 2,000 migrants crossed Hungary’s border with Serbia on Monday — the most in a single day in the current crisis — as the desperate masses mounted a final push to enter the European Union before the frontier is sealed by a razorwire fence next week.
Hungary, the gateway to passport-free travel in Europe, has been inundated by refugees making their way through the Balkans, heading for prosperous countries in the west and north.
Both Austria and Bulgaria called in their armed forces yesterday to tackle the spillover.
In Germany, incidents of violence directed at refugees continued to climb, amid Europe’s worst migration crisis since the Second World War. Two neo-Nazis were arrested in Berlin after one of them allegedly urinated on two refugee children on a train.
Hungarian police registered 2,093 migrants on Monday, taking the total to more than 110,000 so far this year — already more than double the 43,000 recorded in 2014. A further 8,000 migrants still in Serbia are expected to make a desperate attempt to get into Hungary in the next few days.
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The Hungarian government has accused the EU of “humiliating” it with an offer of €8 million in assistance, compared with the €50 million given to France and Britain to cope with migrants in Calais.
“Old member states have nicked the money from new members,” said Janos Lazar, the chief of staff to Viktor Orban, the prime minister. “If we do not take meaningful steps, we will become a lifeboat that sinks beneath the weight of those clinging on to it.”
In an effort to reduce the influx, Hungary is building a 13ft-high fence topped with razorwire all along its 109-mile southern border with Serbia. It is due for completion on Monday.
According to the UN, 10,000 refugees arrived in Macedonia over the weekend. François Crépeau, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said: “Building fences will not stop migrants from coming or trying to come to Europe.”
Migrants crossing the eastern Mediterranean are using Greece and Turkey to make their way into Europe’s borderless Schengen travel zone via Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. From there they journey north, mostly towards Austria and Germany.
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Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, will attend emergency talks in Vienna tomorrow with senior EU officials, foreign ministers and leaders from the western Balkans. Austria deployed more than 500 troops yesterday to help overstretched local authorities deal with the large number of migrants arriving from Hungary and Italy. Its main refugee centre in Traiskirchen, near Vienna, has been overwhelmed, with hundreds of refugees forced to sleep out in the open.
Soldiers will help to transport people and equipment, construct temporary accommodation and provide food, and will be deployed at Austria’s borders only as a “last resort”.
Bulgaria’s army stepped in to secure the country’s southwestern border with Macedonia, with 25 troops and light armoured vehicles deployed. An EU member but not part of Europe’s borderless travel area, Bulgaria has until now focused on reinforcing control of its southeastern border with Turkey, with 1,000 extra police officers manning a heavily fortified 20-mile barrier with its neighbour.
The EU is poised for a bitter political battle this autumn when Germany, France, Italy and the European Commission propose measures to spread the huge number of migrants more equally across member states — amid fierce opposition from poorer countries in eastern Europe.
Britain is also resisting the proposal. In Hamburg, Germany, the home of Til Schweiger, a prominent actor who has formed a foundation to help refugees, has come under attack. An electric cable was cut and a small fire was started in his garden.
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Mrs Merkel will today visit the scene of violent protests in Heidenau, in the east of the country, after denouncing residents who joined demonstrations at the weekend against a new refuge for migrants. She condemned as “repulsive” the hostility shown towards the migrants, but hours later a school gym which was being converted for 130 refugees in Nauen, nine miles west of Berlin, was burnt to the ground.
There have been more than 200 attacks on refugee shelters in Germany this year.
Bild, Germany’s most popular newspaper, ran the headline “Help refugees!” yesterday, with two full pages on “What politicians must now do” and “What I can do” to help. It urged politicians to take tough action against far-right “rabble-rousers” and called on people to open their homes to refugees or donate money and basic necessities. Germany expects to host 800,000 asylum seekers this year.
Two senior government ministers put forward a ten-point plan for Europe to cope with the influx. “The political framework for action has long since ceased to be national,” said Sigmar Gabriel, the vice-chancellor, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign secretary, both from the Social Democratic Party. “Only together and only at the European level will we be able to find rational solutions.”
The plan includes a common European code of asylum and a call to distribute refugees fairly across Europe.
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The German navy announced yesterday that a migrant baby had been born at sea on one of its ships. A 33-year-old Somalian refugee named only as Rahma A, travelling alone from Mogadishu, gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the early hours of Monday. She was one of 4,000 refugees rescued in the Mediterranean at the weekend.