Budapest  - Freezing weather forced a Kosovan family to turn itself in after crossing illegally from Serbia into the EU, Hungarian border guards saidon Sunday.

Szilvana Tuczakov, a spokeswoman for the police in Csongrad County in southern Hungary, told the local news agency MTI that the two adults had probably feared for the safety of their four children. The oldest was just six years of age.

The family gave itself up to border guards on Saturday afternoon as temperatures plunged well below zero Celsius. The group subsequently claimed asylum and was transferred to Hungary's refugee processing centre in the town of Bekescsaba.

Another Kosovan man was apprehended by border guards at dawn on Sunday and now faces illegal immigration proceedings. His was the latest case in what has been a busy Christmas for guards on Hungary's border with Serbia.

On Wednesday Hungarian border guards apprehended nine illegal immigrants, five from Montenegro and four from Serbia.

Then on Thursday eight Serbians were caught near a border crossing station after entering Hungary illegally. A further seven men who turned out to be from Kosovo were picked up after a border official spotted them hanging around a petrol station in southern Hungary.

The same day, two African men attempting to hitch hike out of a southern Hungarian town were picked up by a border official who was driving to work. The men were carrying no identity papers, but later admitted that they were en route from the Ivory Coast to France in search of a better life.

Hungary joined the EU in 2004 and the borderless Schengen zone in January this year. Its external borders with the non-EU countries Ukraine, Croatia and, in particular, Serbia, are on the front line of the battle to stop illegal immigration into the EU. The Balkan peninsula is a major route into the EU for smugglers and people traffickers. dpa