The Hungarian government has stepped up the alert along Hungary’s southern border in the wake of an incident involving illegal migrants on the Bosnian-Croatian border.
Lajos Kósa, head of parliament’s defense and law enforcement committee, made the announcement and stressed that what happened on the Bosnian-Croatian border, at Bihac, cannot be allowed to happen in Hungary.
After visiting the point where the borders of Hungary, Serbia and Croatia meet, Kósa told journalists that Bihac was a repeat of the clash in Röszke, on the Hungarian-Serbian border, in 2015.
He said that NGOs organize illegal migration and a majority are financed by the likes of US billionaire George Soros, which pave the way for the illegal entry of migrants into the EU on the Bosnian-Croatian border.
Kósa confirmed that at present there are about 70,000 migrants heading for western Europe are waiting along the Balkan route.
On Friday alone, Hungarian police caught 23 illegal entrants. Police helicopters are patrolling the Serbian border twice a day and electronic devices are monitoring any “organized movement” on the other side of the border, he said.
State secretary of defense Szilárd Németh said that 1,200 soldiers are standing by, ready to be deployed along the border within 24 hours, and another 1,100 within 72 hours.