Hungarian police on Friday confirmed that they found two tunnels used by migrants to enter the country from Serbia, ABC News reported.
According to the police source, one tunnel of 34 meters long was discovered near the southern village of Asotthalom. Some 44 migrants were arrested in the village trying to enter into the EU through the tunnel.
The tunnel near Asotthalom – around 50 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters high – had been dug as deep as about 6 meters below the barrier fence without any support beams or any form of support structure to prevent its collapse.
A police officer, Jeno Szilassi-Horvath said a human trafficker was detained along with the migrants.
Szilassi-Horvath said the precarious structure was not detected by law enforcement because of the dense vegetation in the area . Also, the soil – which would have given border patrol agents a clue of the activity – was dumped in a nearby canal.
The digging likely lasted a few weeks and was done without any machines. He added that border officials have deployed drones and scanners to search for other tunnels.
A second tunnel was found in the village of Csikeria, some 21.7 meters. This tunnel was found near the Serbian border about 40 kilometres west of the first one according to media reports in Belgrade on Friday.
It appears that no successful migrant crossing took place under the fence. According to police, they had discovered both tunnels soon after their construction was completed, and they have since filled up the structures to seal them.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff Djerdjerli Guljas, cited by Serbian media, saying that the number of migrants who have illegally entered Hungary along its southern border with Serbia has grown significantly in recent months.