The latest Thursday on the European migrant crisis (all times GMT):

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1235 GMT

A senior ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is rejecting the Hungarian prime minister's assertion that the migrant influx is a German problem.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the problem is Germany's because so many migrants want to go there. But in Berlin, Volker Kauder, the parliamentary caucus leader of Merkel's conservative bloc, noted that European Union rules say migrants are supposed to be registered in the first EU country where they arrive — and then stay there.

Kauder says "where people want to go is one thing, but they are registered and they are supposed to stay where they arrive in a safe country in Europe."

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1200 GMT

Scuffles have broken out at the train station in the Hungarian town of Bicske between migrants and police in riot gear.

Several hundred migrants excitedly packed into Thursday's first train leaving the Budapest train station, hoping to reach Austria. But when the train stopped on a police-packed platform at Bicske, which hosts a major refugee camp, disappointed migrants started chanting "No camp!" and refused to leave the train as police ordered.

Several hundred migrants have remained on or beside the idling train at Bicske for hours. Police have distributed water, but many migrants have refused it or thrown it back, fearing it could contain sedatives.

In Budapest, thousands of migrants remain camped out at Keleti, the main train station. Few agreed to board another train to northwest Hungary, fearing they too will run into another wall of police.

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1135 GMT

The president of the 28-nation European Union is calling for countries to share the burden of taking in at least 100,000 asylum-seekers arriving in the nations hardest hit by the migrant influx: Greece, Italy and Hungary.

European Council President Donald Tusk said Thursday that the "fair distribution of at least 100,000 migrants among the EU states is what in fact we need."

He warned if EU "leaders do not demonstrate goodwill, solidarity will become an empty slogan and will be replaced by political blackmail, divisions and a new blame game."

EU leaders promised in June to share 40,000 migrants arriving in Greece and Italy, but the controversial plan is at a standstill amid bickering over how people should be distributed. Many European nations are reluctant to take in more migrants.

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1125 GMT

A Greek minister says over 230,000 migrants have arrived in Greece in the first eight months of this year, compared to roughly 17,500 in the same eight months last year.

Christos Zois, the caretaker minister for the merchant marine, said 80 percent of those arriving were refugees. The migrant arrivals in just July and August alone surpassed 157,000, he said.

The country's caretaker government — in power until Greece holds an early election on Sept. 20 — is announcing immediate measures in order to tackle the refugee crisis that has overwhelmed its eastern Aegean islands and northern border with Macedonia.

Zois said authorities have received information that there could be millions more refugees waiting to cross toward Europe through Greece.

The vast majority of refugees who arrive do not want to remain in the financially stricken country and head north to more prosperous European countries.

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1110 GMT

French President Francois Hollande is calling an emergency meeting of top government officials to address Europe's migrant crisis.

Among others, the meeting Thursday afternoon will include Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who earlier in the day had called for urgent solutions for Europe's migrant crisis.

French public opinion appeared divided over the summer on whether to take in more migrants, but the government is under increasing pressure to help resolve the Europe-wide issue.

Germany expects to take in over 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, the most in Europe, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged other EU nations to take in more migrants.

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1055 GMT

Turkey's state-run news agency says police have detained four suspected human smugglers a day after 12 migrants drowned while trying to reach a Greek island.

The dead migrants included a 3-year-old boy whose body washed up on a beach, galvanizing a worldwide debate about migration.

The Anadolu Agency said organized crime police detained the suspects, including at least one Syrian citizen, on a beach on Turkey's Bodrum peninsula. They were sent to a court Thursday to face charges. Anadolu said the four were suspected of acting as intermediaries for illegal migrant crossings.

The 12 migrants drowned when two boats carrying them from Bodrum to the Greek island of Kos capsized on Wednesday.

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1045 GMT

Serbia's prime minister has warned of "huge problems" with migrants once Hungary's deploys military on its southern border with Serbia as part of a bid to stem the influx — and urged the European Union to come up with a plan before that happens.

Prime Minister Aleksander Vucic said Thursday that "no one knows what will happen" after Sept. 15, when Hungary's new measures against migrants and human traffickers take effect.

Vucic says Serbia is ready to share its part of the burden but "we need to hear what would be that comprehensive solution."

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1030 GMT

The Czech Republic is releasing 230 Syrians who have been detained in migrant centers. The move comes a day after Czech authorities announced they no longer intended to prevent Syrians who had already claimed asylum in Hungary from traveling via its territory to Germany.

The Czechs previously had detained Syrian migrants, as well as those from other nations, for up to 42 days. The new policy could allow Syrian migrants to travel more freely to Berlin because the most direct Hungarian trains to Germany's capital pass through the Czech Republic.

Police spokeswoman Katerina Rendlova says the Syrians have seven days to leave the country.

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1000 GMT

Prime Minister Viktor Orban says he plans to deploy the military as part of a crackdown on migrants and human traffickers in coming weeks and blames Germany for the influx through his country.

Arriving in Brussels for talks about the crisis, Orban said the Hungarian parliament is pushing through new measures "that will create a new legal situation at the borders, even more strict than it was."

Asked by The Associated Press whether the military will be deployed to defend Hungary's borders, he said: "Yes."

Orban said in Brussels that the migrant "problem is not a European problem, the problem is a German problem, nobody would like to stay in Hungary."

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0900 GMT

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has tweeted the photo of the dead 3-year-old on the beach, writing: "He had a name: Aylan Kurdi. Urgent to act. Urgent to have a European mobilization."

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0850 GMT

Czech police say they have stopped marking the arms of migrants with numbers — a practice reminiscent of the Holocaust.

Police on Tuesday marked arms after they detained more than 200 people, mostly Syrians, in Breclav who arrived on trains from Hungary and Austria in Germany-bound trains.

Spokeswoman Katerina Rendlova defended the practice, saying it was used in a chaotic situation to prevent children from being separated from mothers. Rendlova says police initially gave them the numbers on a piece of paper but the migrants threw them away.

Rendlova said Thursday police will use wristbands instead.

Klara Holikova from the Association for Integration and Migration commended the change but said the major problem is that migrants are detained at all.

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0833 GMT

Greece's coast guard says it has rescued hundreds of migrants or refugees at sea as they attempted to reach Greek islands clandestinely from the nearby Turkish coast.

The coast guard says it had picked up 751 people in 19 incidents between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning off the coasts of the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Agathonissi, Farmakonissi, Kalymnos and Symi. The figures do not include the hundreds more who reach the islands' shores each day.

With its massive coastline and proximity of its islands to the Turkish coast, Greece is the main point of entry into the European Union for a stream of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. More than 200,000 people have reached Greece so far this year.

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0737 GMT

Migrants poured into Budapest's Keleti rail station on Thursday as police stopped blocking its main entrance, piling into trains despite announcements that there was no service to Western Europe.

Hungary's railway company said it had suspended all direct trains from the Hungarian capital to western destinations. There was no immediate explanation from the government for the change in its policy.