The Latest: Fights, scuffles at Greece's northern border
By Associated Press
Sep 1, 2015 5:01 AM CDT
Migrants wait behind a fence guarded by police as the Keleti train terminal in Budapest, Hungary, was closed Tuesday morning Sept. 1, 2015 for an indefinite time. (AP Photo/Pablo Gorondi)   (Associated Press)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The latest developments as tens of thousands of migrants flood into countries across Europe. All times local (CET):

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12 noon

Tensions are flaring once again at Greece's northern border with Macedonia, where about 1,500 migrants are waiting to cross the border and head north toward the more prosperous European Union countries.

Fights and scuffles broke out Tuesday among the crowd near the Greek village of Idomeni when hundreds of people, mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, attempted to rush the border being guarded by Macedonian police.

Macedonian authorities have been allowing small groups to cross at a time and head to the Gevgelija train station. Last month, Macedonian authorities briefly halted all crossings and used stun grenades and batons to push back the crowd.

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11:45 a.m.

Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany isn't to blame for the stream of Syrian refugees in Hungary trying to board trains headed for Germany.

Hungary's government has pinpointed Germany's "more flexible attitude" toward Syrians as a problem that encourages migration. German authorities have advised officials not to send Syrians back to the first European Union country where they arrived, as EU rules stipulate.

Merkel said Tuesday that Syrians do have a high chance of getting asylum but "that should be no surprise ... and should actually be similar in every European country."

Merkel said "the current rules are clearly not being practiced." She said the answer is a common European asylum policy with a "fair distribution" of refugees across the 28-nation EU.

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11:20 a.m.

Hungary has suspended all rail traffic from its main terminal in Budapest and cleared the train station of hundreds of migrants trying to board trains for Austria and Germany after scuffles broke out where a train was to leave for Vienna and Munich.

Migrants chanting "Freedom! Freedom!" congregated outside the station after being pushed out.

Police acted after authorities announced over station loudspeakers that all trains would be stopped from leaving for an indefinite period. Scores of locals, tourists and migrants with travel documents and tickets remained in the cavernous station, some staring at information boards still showing arrival and departure times.

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10:55 a.m.

UNICEF says the number of women and children fleeing through Macedonia has tripled in the past three months.

The U.N.'s children's agency said Tuesday some 3,000 people are passing daily through the former Yugoslav republic — and roughly one in eight is a pregnant woman. Citing Macedonian figures, UNICEF says four out of five of the migrants come from Syria.

Since June, more than 52,000 people have been registered in the town of Gevgelija on the Greek border. The agency says it is dispatching sending water and huge tents to Skopje, the Macedonian capital.

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10:45 a.m.

Greece's coast guard says it has rescued nearly 1,200 migrants from the sea off its eastern Aegean islands in a single day, as the flood of people fleeing war and poverty to seek shelter in the European Union continues unabated.

The coast guard said Tuesday it had picked up 1,192 people in 31 separate search-and-rescue operations from Monday morning to Tuesday morning off the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Agathonissi, Farmakonissi, Kos and Megisti. That number is significantly higher than the average of late, which is usually in the hundreds.

The numbers do not include hundreds more who reach the islands themselves from the nearby Turkish coast each day, usually in overloaded inflatable dinghies.

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