DHAKA: Croatia says it will allow migrants to travel on to northern Europe - opening up a new route a day after Hungary sealed its border with Serbia.

More than 150 migrants have crossed into Croatia from Serbia. Those stranded on Serbia’s border with Hungary are making a similar trip.

Croatia says it is ready to receive them or ‘direct’ them to where they want to go, reports the BBC.

Many migrants - mainly Syrian - are hoping to reach Germany.

New border restrictions and a row over allocating migrants have shown bitter divisions in Europe over the crisis.

The BBC’s Lyse Doucet says buses, vans and cars have been taking migrants away from the Serbia-Hungary border area towards the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and the border with Croatia.

On Tuesday, Hungary declared a state of emergency in the border area, with hundreds of army and police deployed to enforce new laws making it an offence to breach a razor-wire border fence.

Police sealed a railway crossing point near Roszke which had been used by tens of thousands of migrants to enter the European border-free Schengen zone.

And the first trials of refugees detained for illegal border crossing have been held in the Hungarian city of Szeged.

Ahmed Suadi Talib, an Iraqi who was studying in Syria, was the first to be convicted under the new law - and was excluded from Hungary for one year.

BDST: 2038 HRS, SEPT 16, 2015
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** Migrants face hunt for new routes