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Hungary announces start of barrier construction on Serbian border

Xinhua, July 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

Hungary announced on Monday that it had started building a fence on a section of its border with Serbia just south of the town of Morahalom.

A statement issued by the Hungarian interior ministry noted that the Hungarian Defense Force, backed by police security, began the preparatory work required for the construction of the fence on Monday morning.

The statement noted that an average of 1,000 people a day were crossing the Serbian border into Hungary. Some 78,190 people attempting to illegally cross the border had been apprehended in 2015 so far, 77,600 of whom had entered the country from Serbia, the statement continued. The fence, it wrote, is intended as a temporary measure to prevent illegal crossings through fields and meadows.

The sample section of the fence to be built will be 150 meters long and is a joint project of the ministry of the interior and the ministry of defense, the statement said.

Hungary initially announced its intention to build a 175-km-long, four-meter-high fence along its entire border with Serbia on June 17, citing a huge and growing wave of illegal border crossings. It is believed those making the crossing have been using the country's southern border to enter the European Union. Endit