ROZSKE (Hungary) (Sputnik) — Hungarian police used tear gas on Tuesday in clashes with refugees at the Horgos-Rozske border crossing between Serbia and Hungary, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the site.
Violence erupted when hundreds of refugees refused to be transported to migration camps and attempted to walk on foot to the capital, Budapest, some 180 kilometres (112 miles) away.
Earlier in the day, 3,000 thousands arrived at the village of Roszke, near Hungary's border with Serbia. According to media reports, they crossed the border freely, but some of them refused to be settled in a migrant camp fearing they would be left there, while they wanted to go to Germany.
Hungary is one of several EU countries reeling from the rapidly escalating migrant crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people flee their homelands in the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa in the hope of finding refuge in the European Union.
More than 156,000 migrants, most of whom are from Serbia, have crossed the Hungarian border illegally this year, according to the country's interior ministry.
Amid the crisis, Hungary has toughen its asylum policy, which was condemned by Brussels and numerous rights groups. In late August, Hungary completed the construction of a 108-mile fence on the country’s southern border with Serbia. The Hungarian authorities said that the erected fence would be accompanied by a more permanent 13-foot wall.
