Hungary has effectively sealed its border with Serbia to stem the massive influx of asylum seekers, as EU ministers failed in an emergency meeting to agree on sharing the migrants around the bloc.
PHOTO: A wagon blocks a former route used by asylum seekers along a rail track on the Serbian-Hungarian.
On Monday afternoon (local time) Hungarian police had closed the main unofficial crossing point — a 40-metre gap in a razorwire barrier for train tracks — and directed migrants to a nearby official crossing point.Budapest's move came after Austria and Slovakian authorities followed Germany's lead in reimposing border controls, a further blow to Europe's cherished passport-free Schengen zone as the continent grapples with one of its biggest migration crises since 1945.
But the next morning witnesses said this official entry point was also closed, leaving several hundred migrants queuing with no apparent hope of entering the EU member state.
"The border was shut and has yet to re-open," said UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch.
"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."
The closure came as harsh new Hungarian laws came into effect criminalising "illegal border-crossing" with up to three years in prison.
Hungary, which has seen some 200,000 migrants enter the country this year, is also building a controversial fence four metres high along the 175-kilometre border with non-EU Serbia.
Poland said it was considering sealing its border, while the Netherlands said it would have "more patrols" on its frontiers.
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