A record number of refugees have streamed into EU member state Hungary from Serbia, police said, just days before Hungary completes a border fence to keep out migrants.
A total of 2093 migrants, the highest ever daily total, crossed the border near the Hungarian town of Roszke, a police statement said on Monday (local time).
They were part of a wave of about 7000 refugees whose journey to the European Union had been blocked last week when Macedonia declared a state of emergency and closed its borders after being overwhelmed by the huge influx of people, amid Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II.
Many refugees told AFP correspondents at the Hungarian border they had passed through Serbia after travelling through Macedonia's border with Greece.
"We were stopped in Macedonia for two days, the riots were terrible, police used guns and tear gas, I saw an old woman beaten, her money and papers taken," said a 29-year-old IT engineer from Mosul in Iraq who left his home to escape the Islamic State group. He asked not to be named.
Hungary has registered more than 100,000 asylum-seekers so far in 2015, over double the total for all of last year. In 2012 the figure was just 2000.
The numbers have sharply increased to about 1500 a day in August, after Hungary's conservative government announced it would build a razor-wire fence along its southern border with Serbia.
In recent days, refugees have entered Hungary alongside a cross-border train track near Roszke, one of the few sections of the border with Serbia not yet blocked by three rolls of razor-wire, which the government says will completely seal off the border by August 31.
The fence is one of several tough anti-migrant government measures, which also include tightening of asylum laws, penalties for illegal border-crossing, and the planned closure of permanent refugee camps.
AFP
