OREANDA-NEWS  At a press conference held in the Budapest Riot Police Headquarters, National Police Chief K?roly Papp said that on Monday, twenty Hungarian police officers set off to Serbia for the protection of the Serbian-Bulgarian border.

Mr. Papp pointed out that external Schengen borders must be protected and the related necessary measures and resources must be coordinated.

He added that since 2015, Hungary has provided police assistance to a number of countries in border protection, including Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece.

“Today it has become just natural that Central European and the Balkan countries help each other in monitoring the Balkan route”, Mr. Papp said and noted that international cooperation continues in Hungary too: Hungarian, German and Austrian police officers, for instance, are jointly checking passenger trains.

In the period between 23 October and January 2016, 18,028 illegal border crossers have been apprehended along the external Schengen borders of Hungary. 97 per cent of migrants arrived at the Hungarian-Serbian border, and the same proportion of them have entered EU territory in Greece or Bulgaria.