PRAGUE: Eastern European countries rejected migrant quotas on Friday, exposing a deep rift on the continent over how to respond to the crisis as new footage raised further questions about Hungary’s treatment of floods of refugees.

Pressing his Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovakian counterparts in Prague, Germany’s foreign minister warned that the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants could be “the biggest challenge for the EU in its history.”

“If we are united in describing the situation as such, we should be united that such a challenge is not manageable for a single country,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, calling for “European solidarity.”

But Steinmeier’s appeal to agree to European Commission proposals unveiled on Wednesday to share around 160,000 migrants among the 28-nation bloc fell on deaf ears.

“We’re convinced that as countries we should keep control over the number of those we are able to accept,” said Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek after the meeting.

Draconian new laws entering into effect on Tuesday will allow Hungary to jail migrants and mooted legislation will see the army deployed and soldiers and police given wide-ranging new powers.

Further concerns about Hungary were raised by video footage showing migrants inside a holding camp being fed in the words of one volunteer “like animals in a pen,” with women and children caught in a scrum.

“It was inhumane and it really speaks for these people that they didn’t fight over the food despite being clearly very hungry,” said Austrian volunteer Michaela Spritzendorfer, who filmed the scenes.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reiterated Friday that his country was merely applying European rules in seeking to register the new arrivals, pinning the blame on fellow EU member Greece for letting migrants leave and travel north.

“Just because Greece is not keeping to the common (Schengen) agreement does not authorize Hungary to give up on the Schengen rules as well,” Orban said in Budapest.

Meanwhile, a Hungarian camerawoman who caused global outrage after being caught on film tripping and kicking refugees, including children, as they fled police apologized and said she had “panicked.”

“I’m not a heartless, child-kicking racist camera-person,” said Petra Laszlo, who was sacked by N1TV, an Internet-based television station close to Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party, after the footage went viral.

Laszlo said in a letter to a newspaper that she did not “deserve either the political witch hunt that is going on against me, or the smears or the many death threats.”