Around a hundred migrants nearly suffocated in a truck that was to have taken them to Austria on Friday evening, but the driver changed his mind and left them locked up in the vehicle near the Hungarian town of Morahalom, the Vojvodina media reported on Saturday.
Local residents heard noise coming from the truck, with suffocating migrants managing to break the door open as the police arrived. They arrested 106 people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iran without valid travel documents.
The driver, who has not been identified, had demanded 1,500 euros per person to take the migrants to Austria.
The migrants were handed over to the Hungarian Immigration Service.
In the last 24 hours 1,516 people entered Hungary illegally, and 95% of them were arrested in the territory of Bacs-Kiskun and Csongrad counties which border with Vojvodina.
Before they illegally cross the border, migrants gather in Kanjiza, Vojvodina and the surrounding area where they arrive in groups from Serbia's interior.
Hoping to get instructions as to how to deal with this surge in migrants, Kanjiza municipal authorities have contacted the relevant Serbian and Vojvodina institutions but have not received any response yet.
"With 500-600 people arriving every day the situation is becoming alarming, and the figure is very likely to exceed 1,000. We will then have a humanitarian disaster here and Kanjiza will not be able to deal with it on its own, either financially or in terms of organisation. I don't think this is fair in terms of humanity," said Robert Lacko, chair of the Town Assembly of Kanjiza, a community where Hungarians are in the majority.
Local media report that during the night migrants leave Kanjiza in groups and walk to the local crossing on the border with Hungary, hoping to cross it illegally.
According to local residents, this happens on a daily basis in almost all towns on the border with Hungary.
Kanjiza residents say that more than ten buses arrive in their town every day from central and southern Serbia, carrying migrants from Syria.
The number of people illegally crossing the border has surged following Hungary's recent announcement that it will put up a four-metre-high fence along the border with Serbia.
Since the beginning of this year, more than 50,000 immigrants have illegally crossed the Serbian-Hungarian border and sought asylum in Hungary or continued their journey to Western European countries.