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Updated: Aug 26, 2015 18:31 IST

More than 2,100 police would be sent to Hungary-Serbia border as record numbers of refugees and migrants have poured into the EU member state, said Hungary's police chief.

"The border protection will be reinforced with 2,106 extra police from September 5," Karoly Papp told reporters in Budapest.

The reinforcements, called 'border hunters', will patrol the length of the border, supporting the more than 1,000 regular police already working around the clock to intercept illegal immigrants, Papp said.

Hungarian police positioned nearby watch as Syrian migrants climb under a fence to enter Hungary at the Hungarian-Serbian border near Roszke, Hungary. Hungary's government has started to construct a 175-km-long (110-mile-long) fence on its border with Serbia in order to halt a massive flow of migrants who enter the EU via Hungary and head to western Europe. (Reuters Photo)

The announcement came as the police fired tear gas at migrants near the Roszke border crossing, where a majority of people cross into Hungary from non-EU member Serbia.

A police spokesman said that officers intervened after migrants tried to leave the main processing centre without being fingerprinted.

More than 2,500 people, the highest ever daily total, crossed into Hungary on Tuesday.

The majority were from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and included 555 children.

Syrian refugees cross into Hungary underneath the border fence on the Hungarian - Serbian border. More than 140,000 migrants have reached Hungary on routes across the Balkans so far in 2015. Recently, some 80 percent of them are from war zones like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo)