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| Refugee crisis: Hungary launches border crackdown – live updates | Refugee crisis: Hungary launches border crackdown – live updates |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 8.39am BST08:39 | |
| The main official border crossing point between Serbia and Hungary was closed to migrants on Tuesday, the UN’s refugee agency has confirmed. | |
| At midnight, it shut the crossing near Roszke, leaving hundreds of migrants to queue with no apparent hope of entering. | |
| “The border was shut and has yet to re-open,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told AFP from the border. | |
| “Our staff do not have access, and the Hungarian authorities have not let us know about any schedule they have for re-opening the border,” he added. | |
| Roszke, #Hungary: People been brought at train station mostly used for cargo. Families been here since midnight pic.twitter.com/xTCYL6Zhdd | |
| 8.29am BST08:29 | |
| First arrests under Hungary's border crackdown | |
| The first arrests have occurred under Hungary’s new border laws, according to Reuters. | |
| Hungarian police detained nine Syrian and seven Afghan migrants early on Tuesday for illegally crossing the Serbian border fence, a police spokeswoman said. | |
| Police spokeswoman Viktoria Csiszer-Kovacs said the migrants were suspected of lifting the razor wire fence to get into Hungary, which constitutes a crime under the new laws that took effect at midnight. | |
| Under the new system Hungary has designated Serbia as a safe country so if asylum seekers have entered from Serbia without already applying for asylum there – they face automatic expulsion within eight days. | |
| 8.17am BST08:17 | |
| Hungarian MEP Gyorgy Schopflin has defended his country’s tough new border laws. | |
| He said Hungary could not cope with the “flood” of people arriving. “It is this shock that I think the government is dealing with,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He suggested that the new controls would help calm tension in Hungary. “The more the refugees come in this uncontrolled flood, the more the anti-refugee sentiments arises,” he said. | |
| Schopflin, a member of the Fidesz the party founded by Hungary’s anti-immigration prime minister Viktor Orban, also rejected the idea of EU quotas for resettling refugees. He said: “We don’t know if we want the commission to impose obligatory quotas. Voluntary is another story.” | |
| Schopflin said the “silent majority” of Europeans did not welcome more refugees despite the visible welcome made by many members of the public. | |
| And he insisted that it was this public rejection that had forced Germany to reintroduce border controls. Schopflin also claimed that the number refugees arriving was a threat to security and some of Europe’s core values. He said: “If you have a large number of unassimilated recently-arrived migrants, they are potentially capable of destabilising law and order which of course puts the whole of democracy and liberalism in danger.” | |
| 7.57am BST07:57 | 7.57am BST07:57 |
| The border crackdown in Hungary comes a day after the authorities reported a new record number of migrants. The Hungarian police said they intercepted 9,380 people entering Hungary on Monday, a sharp rise the previous record set the day before. | The border crackdown in Hungary comes a day after the authorities reported a new record number of migrants. The Hungarian police said they intercepted 9,380 people entering Hungary on Monday, a sharp rise the previous record set the day before. |
| 7.42am BST07:42 | 7.42am BST07:42 |
| Summary | Summary |
| Welcome to live coverage of the continuing refugee crisis gripping Europe as laws to criminalise migrants in Hungary come into force. | Welcome to live coverage of the continuing refugee crisis gripping Europe as laws to criminalise migrants in Hungary come into force. |
| Here’s a roundup of the latest developments: | Here’s a roundup of the latest developments: |
| Updated at 7.43am BST | Updated at 7.43am BST |