Migrants Overrun Police at Flashpoint Border Crossing, Entering Hungary

Dozens of migrants on Wednesday managed to break through Hungarian police lines on the Serbian border and force their way into Hungary at the flashpoint Roszke crossing, AFP correspondents said.

After an hour of clashes, the crowds managed to pull down wire meshing across two access routes to Hungarian territory, with riot police moving back some 50 meters (yards) then firing tear gas at them.

The migrants did not however take advantage and run deeper into Hungarian territory, apparently wanting instead to show their frustration after Hungary sealed the border on Monday and Tuesday, the AFP correspondent said.

The Hungarian government said that 20 police were injured in the clashes.

Gyorgy Bakondi, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief adviser, said that an hour before, the migrants had issued an "ultimatum" to police.

"They said either let them through or they will use violence, the Hungarian police naturally do not give way to any ultimatum," he told a news conference in the southern city of Szeged near the Serbian border.

"We will repair the fence, in fact we will put up a stronger fence," he said.

A government spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, said: "Illegal migrants throwing objects attacked the Hungarian border, and broke through the fence.

"Since then Hungarian police have been defending the Hungarian border with their own bodies, preventing violent migrants from getting through to Hungary," he told the same news conference.

The clashes took place after Hungary this week sealed its southern border with Serbia, cutting off one of the biggest entry points for migrants into the European Union this year with more than 200,000 crossing the border.

This left no way for thousands of people traveling up from Greece through the western Balkans to get into the EU, leading several hundred to enter Croatia -- an EU member but not in the Schengen passport-free zone.