Roundup: Refugees continue to flood Hungary, this time from Croatia

Syrian, Afghan and other refugees continue to enter Hungary by the thousands, being bused to the Croatian-Hungarian border by Croatian authorities, Hungarian police in Baranya County in southwest Hungary and in Vas County in the northwest reported on Saturday.

According to Laszlo Balazs of the National Police Force's border control authority, as of midnight on Friday they had taken action against 209,963 people this year, of whom 200,973 had crossed in from Serbia and 7,993 entered from Croatia, most of the latter in the past 24 hours.

A transit processing facility opened in Beremend on the Croatian border on Friday night, Attila Kiss of the Immigration and Nationality reported on Saturday, but apparently most people crossing in have been taken to a facility in Szentgotthard on the Austrian border for processing.

Eniko Kazmar of the Vas County Police said she could not give exact figures on the numbers arriving in Szentgotthard, but did say that multiple busloads and trainloads of refugees had arrived overnight and on Saturday morning. Most arrivals, she said, refused to enter the processing center and instead began walking to the nearby Austrian border.

Wire service MTI reported that 14 buses carrying a total of 830 people had arrived in Szentgotthard before midnight on Friday with a further 30 buses coming in between midnight and 7 a.m. local time. In addition, a train carrying 2,500 people had arrived overnight. On Saturday morning another train pulled in carrying 1,000-1,200 people, nearly all of whom immediately set out on foot for the Austrian border.

Police say refugee traffic has been particularly heavy in Baranya, Somogy, and Zala Counties in the southwest of Hungary, all on the Croatian border. The border towns of Beremend, Magyarboly, Gyekenyes, Nagykanizsa and Letenye had received nearly 5,000 people overnight who were taken to reception facilities at Szentgotthard, and to Vamosszabadi on the Slovak border.

One train loaded with refugees crossed into Hungary from Croatia, on Friday night, police said. Hungarian authorities halted the train and detained the engineer and crew. They ID-ed the Croatian police officers aboard the train and returned them to the border.

In the meantime, Hungary's defense minister has ordered military reserves called in, according to a Defense Ministry briefing on Saturday. It said that the reserves would take over the duties the active forces had to abandon when ordered to the border or to participate in international military exercises currently underway.

Also on Saturday, a court in Szeged, SE Hungary, ordered the official arrest of 11 men for their role in the break-through in the fence on the Serbian border on Wednesday in which demonstrators pelted police with stones and pieces of pavement, Csongrad County prosecutors told MTI.

Spokesman Ferenc Szanka said six were being held in preliminary detention and five had been forbidden from leaving the reception facility in a type of house arrest.

One of the men is under further investigation for other "more serious crimes," according to authorities. Initial proceedings had included 18 men, including three international journalists who had been covering events. The journalists were later released. Enditem