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KANJIZA/BERLIN.- Migrants sped through the Balkans by train, bus and taxi yesterday, racing to beat a border crackdown promised by Hungary’s right-wing government.

Hungary is threatening to arrest and jail anyone caught trying to cross undetected its southern, EU border from Serbia as of today, and to hold in camps those who seek asylum in a bid to stem the flow of migrants, many of them Syrian refugees, through the Balkan peninsula.

Many appeared to be hurrying to beat the new measures, which would inevitably slow their passage through Hungary to the richer countries of northern and western Europe.

Hungarian police said a record 5 809 people had been registered entering from Serbia on Sunday and a further 5 353 just by noon yesterday. Many appeared to be sent directly by train to the Austrian border, a Reuters photographer said.

“We heard the Hungarians will close the border on September 15th so we had to hurry from Greece,” 24-year-old engineering student Amer Abudalabi, from the Syrian capital Damascus, said shortly before crossing the border from Serbia.

“We have not slept since Saturday morning. . .I’m so tired. I won’t believe it when we cross into Hungary.”

Reuters reporters saw soldiers with automatic weapons standing on the Hungarian side of a metal fence that the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban is building along the length of the border with Serbia, and which it plans to finish by October.

But there did not as yet appear to be any organized effort to halt or slow the passage of migrants. A Hungarian train left from the border town of Roszke bound for the Austrian border, each of its 16 carriages packed with over 100 migrants.

As the EU gropes for a united response, Hungary says it is duty-bound to secure the EU’s external frontier. Starting today, authorities say they will receive and start processing asylum requests at the border with Serbia, and transport many of those who apply to camps else-where in the country.

Those who refuse to cooperate will be held at the border and possibly expelled, while those who try to smuggle themselves over the border, avoiding police, face arrest and possible imprisonment.

Many migrants try to avoid being registered or seeking asylum in Hungary, fearing being stuck in the country or sent back there if caught elsewhere in Europe.

Orban, one of Europe’s most vociferous critics of immigration, drafted hundreds more police officers to the border yesterday, telling on them to be humane but “uncompromising” in implementing the new law.

Meanwhile, Germany re-imposed border controls on Sunday after Europe’s most powerful nation acknowledged it could scarcely cope with thousands of asylum seekers arriving every day.

Berlin announced that the temporary measure would be taken first on the southern frontier with Austria, where migrant arrivals have soared since Chancellor Angela Merkel effectively opened German borders to refugees a week ago.

Now Germany has joined smaller and poorer countries such as Greece and Hungary that are struggling to manage the huge flow of desperate people.

As trains for Germany were stopped, groups of refugees and migrants camped out in an underground carpark in the Austrian city of Salzburg, near the border. Traffic backed up along one of the highways between the two countries.- Reuters.