Refugees on buses in Hungary; Austria, Germany to take them

Migrants enter a bus, which is supposed to leave to Austria and Germany, at the Keleti trainstation in Budapest, Hungary, September 4, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Hours earlier, about 2,000 people set out from Budapest's Keleti station for a 171-kilometer journey (106-mile) to the Austrian border. At first police tried to block them, but they quickly gave up. By nightfall, the marchers had already covered about 50 kilometers (30 miles).

Along the way, some met with gestures of support. Many flashed the V-sight for victory, while some handed out bottles of water to the weary travelers.

A small number made clear the new arrivals were not welcome. "Go home already," one man shouted in Hungarian from a passing car.

Austrian police were making preparations at main border points, with reception areas and first aid facilities. Hans Peter Doskozil, police chief in easternmost Burgeland province, said those measures should be sufficient for the initial arrivals.

Also Friday, the Hungarian parliament tightened its immigration rules, approving the creation of transit zones on the Hungarian border with Serbia where migrants would be kept until their asylum requests were decided within eight days. Migrants would have limited chance to appeal those decisions.

One man leaving Budapest on foot said he expected the journey to Austria to take three days. Osama Morzar, 23, from Aleppo, Syria, was so determined not to be registered in Hungary that he removed his fingerprints with acid, holding up totally smooth finger pads to an Associated Press reporter as proof.

"The government of Hungary is very bad," said Morzar, who studied pharmacology at Aleppo's university. "The United Nations should help."