Desperate Refugees Dragged Off Rail Tracks

Sky News has witnessed desperate scenes in Hungary as hundreds of refugees clashed with riot police who tried to force them off a train and into a migrant camp.

Sky's Europe Correspondent Mark Stone, who was on the train originally bound for the Austrian border, said: "We have just witnessed the most awful, awful sight."

He described seeing a crying mother holding a baby and pleading with police on the platform at Bicske - a town 22 miles (35km) outside Budapest.

The father, clearly overcome with emotion, then pulled his wife and child onto the tracks, before he was handcuffed and taken away.

The train, which earlier left Budapest's main railway station, was halted in Bicske, where there is a migrant reception centre.

Migrants, most of them from Syria, banged on train windows from the outside and shouted "No camp, no camp", while dozens of riot police looked on.

Dozens more lay on the tracks in protest against being taken to the camp, while others caught in the underpass pushed back dozens of riot police blocking the stairs to fight their way back to the train.

Those still in the carriages are demanding water as they sit at the station in the heat.

Hungarian police declared the area an "operation zone" and told all media there to leave. They have been using batons to push reporters out of the station.

It comes as leaders of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia prepare for talks in Prague aimed at addressing the problems caused by the migration flow through Eastern Europe.

The office of Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said he would summon Hungary's ambassador to Vienna on Friday amid bilateral tensions over the way Hungary is dealing with the inflow of migrants to Austria.

Earlier on Thursday, thousands of desperate migrants poured into Keleti railway station after it was reopened, forcing their way onto a train despite announcements that there was no service to western Europe.

The migrants pushed into the carriages and tried to cram their children through open windows.

An Austrian police spokesman said there are no services running from Budapest to Vienna, while the Hungarian government told Sky News no international trains will be leaving Keleti for "safety reasons".

Amid the chaos, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country had done everything to stick to EU rules on border protection, and revealed the army will be deployed to defend Hungary's border with Serbia.

More than 150,000 migrants have travelled this year to Hungary, a gateway to the EU for those crossing by land from nations including Syria and Afghanistan, across Macedonia and Serbia.

Mr Orban, meeting European Union leaders in Brussels to discuss the crisis, said other politicians should not criticise his country for "doing what is compulsory to be done".

Berlin has agreed to take in some 800,000 migrants from Syria and the Middle East.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said the influx of migrants "is a problem that concerns us all in Europe" and added her country is doing what is morally necessary.

French President Francois Hollande said he and Ms Merkel are putting forward a series of measures to deal with the migration crisis.

Mr Hollande said this would include a "permanent and obligatory mechanism" by which refugees, "notably Syrian", would be distributed among the 28 countries in the EU.

These will be submitted to a meeting of European interior ministers on 14 September.

Last weekend, Hungary had allowed migrants to travel by train to western Europe without going through asylum procedures.

Trainloads of migrants arrived in Austria and Germany from Hungary on Monday as asylum rules collapsed under the strain of a wave of migration unprecedented in the EU.

However, Budapest's stance has since hardened, as demonstrated by the Keleti closure and plans to deploy the military to the border.