Migrants head to Croatia as new way north

Thousands of migrants have arrived in Croatia seeking to open up a new route to northern Europe, after Hungary sealed its border, sparking ferocious clashes with angry refugees.

Around 4000 migrants had arrived in the EU member state from Serbia in the past 24 hours, the state-run television channel HRT said early on Thursday, as a special train transporting about 800 migrants from Tovarnik, near the Serbian border, arrived in Dugo Selo, near Zagreb.

The UN's refugee agency said later that between 4000 and 5000 refugees were trying to reach the Croatian capital by train.

They are desperate to get around the border fence Hungary has thrown up along its border with Serbia, where tensions boiled into violence on Wednesday at the flashpoint Horgos-Roszke crossing, after around 500 refugees had been blocked on their march north.

Furious people tore down the wire meshing separating them from Hungarian territory, and police clashed for hours with hundreds of migrants, some of whom threw stones, sticks and plastic bottles as police used tear gas and water cannon.

The unrest left 14 police officers injured, the authorities said.

The situation at the crossing, one of the main junctions in the migrant route north towards Germany and Sweden, was calm early on Thursday.

Around 400 migrants had slept in sleeping bags on the road, while others had spent the night in neighbouring fields.

Hungary's tough stance earned it a rebuke from Serbia over the use of tear gas on its territory, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "shocked".

Gyorgy Bakondi, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief adviser, said the response had come after migrants had issued an "ultimatum" to police, demanding to be let through.

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

Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said the country was prepared for the arrival of migrants displaced by the Hungarian move.

But it could not cope if the numbers increased dramatically.

"We are ready to (provide) asylum to a few thousand people and we can handle that, but we are not ready for tens of thousands," Pusic told HRT.

"We do not have capacities" for such an influx, she added.

From the Alps to Istanbul, thousands of other migrants were caught in similar bottlenecks, with hundreds setting out to walk to Germany from the Austrian border city of Salzburg after trains north were suspended.

In Paris, authorities on Thursday started to clear two makeshift camps housing more than 500 migrants and offered them accommodation in various centres.

Pressure is building for an EU summit to come up with solutions to the continent's worst migration crisis since World War II, with the bloc bitterly split and free movement across borders - a pillar of the European project - in jeopardy.

EU President Donald Tusk was to announce a decision on Thursday on whether to call the summit.

However, on Thursday, the European parliament strongly backed plans to relocate 120,000 refugees around the EU to ease pressure on Greece, Hungary and Italy, which ministers failed to agree on earlier this week.

MPs approved an urgent motion by 372 votes to 124 with 53 abstentions. Interior ministers will meet next Tuesday to reconsider the plans for binding quotas for redistributing refugees.