A SCOTTISH aid worker has told how she was caught up in the clashes on the Serbia and Hungary border as police fired tear gas and water cannon to force migrants back.
Laura Gilmour, a communications officer with the CARE International aid organisation from Edinburgh told how she was forced to run away from the border with other migrants as she was hit by tear gas.
The 30-year-old has been on the border with other aid workers to distribute emergency kits to refugees in Serbia.
She has been with hundreds who are known to have massed at a closed crossing point near the Serbian town of Horgos, and were involved in a tense stand-off with police on the other side of the border.
Some migrants are reported to have thrown missiles, including stones and water bottles.
Many of the migrants want to reach Germany, amid divisions within the EU over how to deal with the crisis.
Tens of thousands of people have crossed into Hungary to enter the Europe Union's Schengen zone, which normally allows people to travel between member countries without restrictions.
Hungary closed its entire border with Serbia on Tuesday after making it illegal to enter the country or damage a new razor-wire border fence. The country's courts have started fast-track trials of arrested migrants.
She said: "Some people had heard the border re-opened, rumours spread and everyone dropped everything, didn't take their belongings just ran for the border whereupon they were heavily tear gassed.
"I was there on Wednesday night when clashes at the border happened. I was in amongst the big crowds that were running towards the border because they thought it had re-opened but hen they were turned back with the tear gas and water cannons.
"I got tear gas myself, and had to join the crowd running away from the border. There are a lot of very young children and women affected. It was a very tense situation.
"I spoke to a man the day after the tear gassing, who had a two-month-old daughter and he took my hand and thrust it on her chest and said to me to feel how her lungs aren't working because of the tear gas.
"He also said he saw another father who was running very quickly with his child, and in the scrum he dropped his child, he was trampled on and they couldn't save him. It really was a very desperate situation which I was caught up in."
CARE has been working in Syria and all neighbouring countries which are receiving refugees from the conflict including Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
To date they say they have helped more than one million refugees including over 400,000 people in northern Syria..
Hungary closed its entire border with Serbia on Tuesday after making it illegal to enter the country or damage a new razor-wire border fence.
"The Hungarian border has now been completely refortified," said Ms Gilmour, who took pictures of the scenes at Horgos. "They used to have a fence but it's now got double layers of barbed wire along it.
"And obviously people are incredibly distressed, they have walked some up to six months from Syria, and they can't believe they have now had to be turned back, some of are setting up camp beside the border in disbelief.
"And a lot have said we have got this far, we have had floating dead bodies around us when we were in the boats, crossing over, and a lot have called this the death march.
"They say they can't turn back now, as they are at the borders to the EU, and they are camped outside the fence, waiting for it to be re-open."
She and other care workers have been handing out emergency are packages including food, water, hygiene kits and first aid.
"I didn't feel any hostility to myself, but the atmosphere was hysterical, people are so desperate and they will do anything they can," said Ms Gilmour.
CARE's @lauraergilmour yesterday at #Serbia #Hungary border echoes #SyrianRefugees: "Where are our human rights?" pic.twitter.com/SQm26sw88l
— CARE International (@CAREemergencies) September 17, 2015
Croatian prime minister Zoran Milanovic says his country cannot and will not close its borders to migrants, and is transporting people to Hungary and Slovenia and further towards western Europe.
Mr Milanovic said Croatia's capacity to take in migrants is full and authorities can no longer register people in accordance with EU rules.
Meanwhile another migrant has died trying to board a British-bound freight shuttle near the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in France, officials have said.
The victim, believed to be Syrian, was reportedly electrocuted after attempting to clamber on to the shuttle in the latest fatal bid by migrants to reach Britain.
At least 10 have died trying to cross from Calais since the start of the migrant crisis, which has placed UK police and social services under huge strain.
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