by Our Foreign Desk

HUNGARIAN police used tear gas and water cannon against desperate refugees trying yesterday to cross its militarised border with Serbia.

Budapest demanded that Belgrade crack down on “attacks” by refugees after frustrated crowds bottlenecked at border crossings threw plastic bottles and stones at riot police massed on the Hungarian side.

“We fled wars and violence and did not expect such brutality and inhumane treatment in Europe,” said Amir Hassan, an Iraqi who was soaking wet from the water cannon and trying to wash tear gas from his eyes.

“Shame on you, Hungarians,” he shouted, pointing at the shielded Hungarian police who were firing volleys of tear gas canisters directly into the crowd.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has erected a 170-mile razor-wire fence along the frontier with Serbia and is now extending it along the Romanian border.

On Tuesday, it enacted draconian new immigration legislation that would see anyone illegally crossing the border jailed for up to three years.

Authorities said yesterday that they had already made 519 arrests under the new laws, charged 46 people and convicted two Iraqi men.

Two men were expelled from Hungary, with one banned from re-entering the country for a year, the other for two.

Televised images from a court in the southern town of Szeged earlier showed four charged Iraqi men with their hands tied in front of them and their shoelaces removed prior to their trial.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto denied that his goverment was xenophobic and repeated the government’s claim that most of those entering Hungary were actually economic migrants.

“Based on our history, we are always in solidarity with the refugees,” he claimed.

“What we’re saying is that we cannot accept economic migrants because we cannot bear the burden.”

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic criticised Hungary’s decision to seal its border with Serbia and said that Croatia would continue to allow refugees to cross its territory on their way to Austria, Germany and Sweden.

“Barbed wire in Europe in the 21st century is not an answer — it’s a threat,” he said.