SID: A first busload of migrants arrived early Wednesday near Serbia's border with EU member Croatia hoping to circumvent a razor-wire fence erected by Hungary, as Germany's Angela Merkel called for an EU summit on the refugee crisis.
The group of 30-40 mostly Syrian or Afghan migrants disembarked at the Serbian border town of Sid after an overnight journey from the Macedonian border at Presevo, 500 kilometres (300 miles) to the south.
"We heard that Hungary was closed so the police told us we should come this way," said Amadou, 35, from Mauritania in western Africa.
"We want to go anywhere there is peace," he said.
Hundreds more desperate people were trapped behind the fence hastily erected by Hungary along its border with Serbia in an attempt to stop the migrant flow through Balkan countries.
Hungary's conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced plans for a similar barrier on its frontier with Romania.
Budapest also made its first arrests under tough new laws punishing "illegal border-crossing" or damaging the border fence with prison terms of up to three years.
"Why are they doing this?" asked an Afghan woman holding a child on the Serbian side of the fence where some 300 people gathered, some searching in vain for an opening, as Hungarian riot police watched them from the other side.
"It was really bad last night," said Bashir, a 17-year-old Afghan schoolboy who had arrived an hour after the border closed. "It was cold, particularly for families with little babies," he told AFP.
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