Hungary closes highway after refugees break police cordon

Hungary has closed its M5 highway after groups of refugees broke through a police cordon at Roszke on the border with Serbia on Wednesday and set off on foot towards the motorway, police said on their website.

It said the entry point on the M5 highway, which leads from the south to Budapest, had also been closed. State news agency MTI reported that as many as 200 to 250 refugees left a collection point for refugees near the border in Roszke after police could no longer contain a group of mainly young males pushing against their cordon.

Police were trying to round up refugees at an intersection along the highway, MTI said. Local news website Index said some 400 refugees broke free from the collection point and half of them set out on the motorway, the other half on a secondary road towards the city of Szeged.