Hungary to get border officers from eastern neighbours to curb migrant flow

Hungary will receive 150 police reinforcements from fellow EU neighbours Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to help tackle a migrant surge on its border with Serbia, the four countries said Thursday.

 The Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians have long demanded tighter border controls as they resisted EU plans to relocate 160,000 refugees throughout the bloc from overstretched Italy and Greece, but were overruled in Brussels.

 Hungary is on the southern frontier of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, which has come under intense pressure as the European Union faces its biggest migrant crisis since World War II.

 "To demonstrate their determination to act in the field of protection of the Schengen border, the countries of the Visegrad Group have come together in a spirit of genuine solidarity and provided Hungary, who currently bears the heaviest burden, with the necessary security assistance," the leaders of the four nations said in a meeting in Brussels that preceded an EU summit on the migrant crisis.

 The four prime ministers said the Czech Republic and Slovakia will each deploy 50 police officers to Hungary's border while Poland will deploy between 50 and 60 police officers as well as five specially equipped vehicles.

 Slovakia said Wednesday that the 50 Slovak policemen will report for patrols along the southern border on October 20, adding that all the officers speak Hungarian.

 Defence Minister Martin Glvac said Slovakia would also send an undisclosed number of soldiers to fellow NATO member Hungary in connection with the migrant crisis.

 Slovakia's leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico said the policing project, to be implemented for a one-month trial period, "provides guidance for other countries on how to defend the external Schengen borders".

 Bratislava has also pledged to give 500,000 euros ($570,000) to local non-governmental organisations that help Syrian refugees in Croatia, Serbia and Turkey.

 The decision comes after grassroots organisations called for more government support for refugees.

 Unlike EU neighbours Austria and Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia have so far seen few migrants and refugees seeking to transit through their territories on their way to Germany and other western European countries.