Migrants storm Budapest train station

epaselect epa04909494 Migrants demonstrate outside the closed Eastern Railway Station in Budapest, Hungary, 02 September 2015, after they were not allowed to board trains bound for Germany without valid documents. The station continues to be closed to migrants, other passengers are allowed to enter and trains operate according to schedule. Hungarian police on 01 September closed the main train station in Budapest from where scores of migrants were hoping to travel to Western Europe. The refugees arrived in Budapest via the so-called Balkan route, across Turkey, the Aegean Sea and Greece, Macedonia and Serbia.  EPA/ZOLTAN MATHE HUNGARY OUT

Hundreds of migrants have stormed into Budapest’s main international train station after police reopened it following a two-day stand-off.

The main entrance was reopened around 08.15am local time on Thursday and migrants burst in, rushing towards a standing train on one of the platforms.

In scenes of utter chaos, with the police seemingly entirely absent, hundreds tried to get on board the train, pushing, shoving and fighting with each other to get on.

A public announcement said, however, that no trains for western Europe would be leaving the Keleti station “for an indefinite period”.

“In the interests of rail travel security the company has decide that until further notice, direct train services from Budapest to western Europe will not be in service,” Hungarian Railways said in a statement.

Hungary is a key arrival point for tens of thousands of migrants entering the European Union, with about 50,000 entering the country in August alone.

On Monday, Hungary allowed several thousand to board trains bound for Austria and Germany, but the following day, Keleti station was closed to anyone without an EU passport or a valid visa.

The move left around 2000 men, women and children stranded around the station or in the underground “transit zone”, a makeshift refugee camp beneath the station where thousands have been sheltering on blankets in cramped conditions, looked after only by Hungarian volunteers.

Over the past two days there have been a number of demonstrations by several hundred of the migrants chanting “Germany! Germany!” and tense stand-offs with riot police as well as a number of scuffles.

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