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| Hungarian police fires tear gas and water cannon on refugees |
The move on Wednesday came after "the crowd on the Serbian side became aggressive and threw stones, bottles and sticks at police on the Hungarian side and crossed the barrier at the border," Hungarian police said.
Croatian police on Wednesday said they were registering refugees entering from Serbia and would transport them to reception centres near the capital Zagreb.
A police spokesman in the eastern border county of Vukovarsko-Srijemska confirmed an unspecified number of refugees had crossed into Croatia, after a Reuters news agency cameraman saw at least 100 walking through fields across the border.
Earlier on Wednesday, a group of 30-40 mostly Syrian or Afghan nationals arrived at the Serbian town of Sid near the Croatian border. They had travelled by bus from the Macedonian border at Presevo, 500km to the south.
The new route takes the refugees to Croatia, from where they will have to travel through Slovenia to get to northern Europe.
Until this week, the vast majority of refugees travelled up from Greece, through Macedonia and Serbia into Hungary.
Earlier on Tuesday, Hungary declared a state of emergency, and shut its border with Serbia leaving many desperate refugees stranded at the border.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has indicated that asylum requests from refugees trying to enter Hungary from Serbia will be rejected, because Serbia is a safe country where refugees do not risk war or persecution.
Slovakia has also started spot-checks at its borders with Hungary and Austria , fearing it could be a new transit point for refugees.
Austria posed new restrictions at its borders on Tuesday, as it struggled to cope with a backlog of thousands trying to reach Germany.
The AP news agency also reported that the temporary control imposed by Austria from midnight local time (2200 GMT) on the Hungarian border may also be extended to other nations.
Thousands of refugees have poured into Austria in recent days, rushing through Hungary ahead of a deadline that saw that country close its border with Serbia.
Source: Bloom Gist and Agencies
