Desperate refugees herded onto trains

Refugees forced from a train in Hungary scuffled with helmeted riot police and some clung to railway tracks yesterday, as politicians across Europe struggled to respond to public opinion appalled by images of a drowned 3-year-old boy.

France and Germany said European countries must be required to accept their shares of refugees, proposing what would potentially be the biggest change to the continent’s asylum rules since the Second World War.

Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s has strained the EU’s asylum system to breaking point, dividing its 28 nations and feeding the rise of right-wing populists.