MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The previous record of 9,380 people crossing the borders of Hungary was documented September 14, a day before Budapest tightened its border legislation, Hungarian news website vs.hu reported.
Hungary, a Schengen border country, is being used as a gateway to wealthier EU states by hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers fleeing war-torn homelands in North Africa and the Middle East. Budapest estimates that over 190,000 refugees have illegally crossed the country’s borders so far in 2015.
In an attempt to put controls on the most acute refugee crisis since World War II, Hungary has constructed fences on its external borders with Serbia and Croatia and introduced criminal penalties for border infringements.
Europe is currently facing a dire migration crisis with the European Commission estimating some 500,000 asylum seekers arriving in the bloc since the beginning of 2015.
