ROSZKE, Hungary — Declaring a state of emergency, Hungary sealed off its southern border with Serbia on Tuesday and detained those trying to enter illegally, aiming to shut down the flow of migrants pouring in. Chaos ensued at the border, as hundreds of migrants piled up in a no man's land, and Serbian officials reacted with outrage.
Stuck for an unknown amount of time on a strip of road between the two countries' checkpoints, those fleeing violence in their homelands pitched tents and settled in. But frustrations were on the rise. As a police helicopter hovered above, migrants chanted "Open the border!" and shouted insults at Hungarian riot police. Some refused food and water in protest.
With a razor-wire fence completed along the Serbian border, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Hungary now also plans to extend the fence for "a reasonable distance" along its border with Romania.
Both Serbian and Romanian governments decried Hungary's moves.
"Raising a fence between two EU member states who are strategic partners is not a fair gesture from a political point of view, according to the European spirit," Romania's Foreign Ministry said.
Serbia's foreign minister declared it was "unacceptable" that migrants were being sent back from Hungary while more and more were arriving from Macedonia and Greece.
"(Serbia) wants to be part of the solution, not collateral damage. There will have to be talks in the coming days with Brussels and other countries," Ivica Dacic said in Prague.
The turmoil at the Hungarian-Serbian border came a day after the 28-nation bloc failed to come up with a united immigration policy at a contentious meeting in Brussels. The ministers did agree to share responsibility for 40,000 people seeking refuge in overwhelmed Italy and Greece and spoke hopefully of reaching an eventual deal — next month or by the end of the year — on which EU nations would take 120,000 more refugees, including some from Hungary.