ITALY’S coastguard rescued a record 4,400 people on Saturday — a record for a single day, it announced yesterday.

Ideal sea conditions saw a “fleet” of overcrowded and unseaworthy boats launched from Libya as the Mediterranean refugee crisis reached new heights.

The coastguard said it had had to carry out 22 separate rescue operations, with some assistance from the navy as well as from Norwegian and Irish naval vessels deployed to help.

Macedonian police abandoned attempts to prevent thousands of desperate refugees from crossing its border with Greece as they sought to board trains heading to Hungary via Serbia in order to get into the EU.

While Greece and Hungary are both EU members and both part of the Schengen area of open borders, Hungary has land borders with other EU states, making it easier to get to other countries from.

But Hungarian authorities are building a razor-wire fence to try to keep the refugees out.