Migrants protest at Hungary train block

Refugees protested at Budapest's eastern Keleti train station on Wednesday as they were refused access to trains for a second day.

Many of the refugees have bought tickets but are being prevented from boarding if they have no passports. More than 2,000 migrants, including families with children, waited in the square at the station after sleeping out overnight. The station had been closed to them on Tuesday.

The protesting migrants shouted "Freedom, freedom!" About 300 of the protestors stared at police in riot gear on one side of the station. Hungary's police said they intended to reinforce their positions.

Germany has begun accepting asylum claims from Syrian refugees - regardless of where they entered the European Union. By far the largest number of asylum seekers have applied to go to Germany.

The action in Budapest has already had an impact on the numbers of migrants arriving in Germany. Police reported on Wednesday that only about 50 migrants arrived on the morning trains to Munich, compared to 2,400 on Tuesday.

EU law

Undocumented migrants are theoretically barred from travel across the European Union, bound to seek asylum in the first EU member state they reach. This rule has been applied by the government in Hungary - except for a brief period on Monday when it allowed people to board trains bound for Germany and Austria - to migrants wishing to travel on to Germany, or Sweden, from Hungary. "A train ticket does not overwrite EU rules," spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said.

On Thursday, the parliament in Hungary is to hold an extraordinary session on government proposals for tighter border controls. New measures would allow for the use of the army, and set up new holding camps for migrants.

Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, is to meet with other EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday. Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Orban would take a "clear and obvious message" about migrants to the discussion.

"We have to reinstate law and order at the borders of the European Union, including the border with Serbia," Kovacs said. "Without re-establishing law and order, it will be impossible to handle the influx of migrants."

The government in Budapest has come under fire from rights groups, including Migration Aid, which has been handing out food, water, blankets and information to migrants for most of the summer:

"The rhetoric of the Hungarian government has demonized certain groups of people in order to generate fear and thus justify security measures, such as the potential intervention of the army at the Hungarian-Serbian border," Migration Aid said in a statement.

A traveler coming through Keleti station, Agnes Halmos, said she was more sorry for the migrants than scared of them: "It's horrible that they are stuck here, thousands of them with just five portable toilets and no place to spend a night," she said. "There are infants here, for crying out loud!"

jm/msh (Reuters, AFP, dpa)