Barely 25km separate Horgos and Asotthalom by road and it’s only 15km if you pick a route through the fields and forest, as many have done this year.
Most residents of both villages speak Hungarian and rely on their corn, sunflowers and orchards to provide an income or to supplement the low wages of the struggling local economy.
But Horgos sits in Serbia and Asotthalom in Hungary and so, now, despite their many similarities and close ties, they are separated by a four-metre-high border fence festooned with coils of glittering razor wire.
Hungary’s fence blocked in Horgos more than 1,000 migrants, who had hoped to follow the more than 200,000 others who passed through and close to Asotthalom this year on their way west.
People here feel they are on the frontline of a crisis dividing Europe, poisoning relations between neighbouring states and prompting a dramatic tightening of borders that the region has sought for 20 years to render obsolete.
Tension in the borderlands erupted this week when dozens of young migrants hurled stones and water bottles at Hungarian riot police, who blocked the frontier where a country road crosses from Serbia.
Dozens of people suffered minor injuries as police responded with water cannon and tear gas.
Hungary’s anti-terrorism unit was deployed, its armoured vehicles standing where local cars, tractors, pedestrians and cyclists usually wait to cross.
As police and military helicopters clattered overhead, and frustrated migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa filled the streets of tiny Horgos, across the border in Asotthalom a sense of relief, and support for the controversial fence, was palpable.
“It is a relief. We’ve really been looking forward to this moment,” said Attila, the manager of Asotthalom’s hardware store. “It’s been getting worse and worse, with more and more migrants coming through the village.
“I can’t say they’ve committed any crimes, but we’ve had lots of people-smugglers doing deals here on the main street.
“They would come tearing into the village, open the car doors and talk to migrants and take off with them.
“This was always a peaceful place and we lost that with the arrival of the migrants and the smugglers,” Attila said of his village of some 4,000 people.
“We were worried for our families and for ourselves. The migrants hid in empty houses, and took fruit from the orchards.
“They rest in the fields and we were worried that a combine harvester could hit them, or swallow up clothes or other things they leave behind – that can do serious damage to a machine.”
Tough stance
Dozens of migrants still breach the fence each day, but numbers reaching Asotthalom are dramatically lower, boosting support for Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban and a tough stance that has faced widespread international criticism.
“I would close my shutters at 6pm and see migrants going past and open them at 6am and see the same thing,” said Attila.
“People couldn’t sleep because the dogs in the village would bark all night at the migrants.
“Now it’s quiet, and I hope it will stay that way. I trust the fence, the police and border guards to handle the situation.”
Views like Attila’s are heard throughout the village and many here express opinions that echo Orban’s claim that the mass migration of Muslims to Europe is a grave threat to its security and traditional Christian identity and values.
The same fears are frequently heard in Horgos, but here locals speak not with relief of a crisis abating, but with concern for how their village can cope with the migrants, as Hungary rejects them and now Croatia closes most roads from Serbia.
“No one knows what will happen, whether they will get stuck and stay here,” said Horgos man Frigyes Balint, as hundreds of migrants continued to wander the village streets despite many rerouting to Croatia to avoid Hungary’s fence.
“If the EU wants to be a Christian Europe, it should build a fence further south.
“If the EU can’t protect its borders and guarantee the free flow of people inside those borders, then it won’t be a ‘European’ union for long. And Serbia won’t want to join such a union.
“They are not just refugees or migrants – they have been sent here by some people,” Balint said, urging Germany’s leader to change her broadly open policy towards refugees.
“Madame [Angela] Merkel should understand that this is aggression against Europe,” he warned.
Orban rebuked the “suicidal liberalism” of the EU’s migration policy yesterday, as Hungary started extending the security fence across its border with Croatia and pledged to do the same along the Romanian frontier if necessary.
At the same time, Slovenia halted rail traffic with Croatia, which in turn closed six of seven road crossings with Serbia; in response, Belgrade threatened to "request the protection of our economic and other interests in international courts".
Further north, several countries have sent troops to help police regulate border movements and reimpose checks that were removed under Schengen rules, the EU’s cherished system of “passport-free” travel across 26 member states.
As Hungary hails the sight of thousands of migrants diverting to Croatia as proof that its security fence works, many in the EU fear the dawn of a new era of barriers, border checks and state policy expressed in mile after mile of razor wire.
A large sign on the edge of Asotthalom now tells visitors that it is guarded by a militia, field patrols and camera surveillance.
The village mayor, Laszlo Toroczkai, has close ties with Hungary's far right and first publicly called for a border fence to be built last autumn.
Now he has made a video message with an action-movie soundtrack, showing militiamen patrolling the border on motorbikes, horseback and in 4x4s.
The mayor ends his film with a dead-eyed stare into the camera. "If you are an illegal immigrant and you want to get to Germany. Hungary is a bad choice," Toroczkai says – "and Asotthalom is the worst."
