Hungary’s army on standby to stem tide of migrants
Country struggling to cope with record numbers of people desperate to find gateway to wealthy Europe
HUNGARY looked ready to bring in the army last night to help stem the inflow of record numbers of migrants.
The EU country’s migrant crisis escalated as police fired tear gas at its main processing centre and the government announced 2,000 “border hunters” to reduce the number of people entering.
With more than 2,500 migrants crossing from non-EU Serbia on Tuesday alone, pushing the total for the year above 140,000, Hungary’s Right-wing ruling party said it wanted to deploy the army.
In the village of Roszke, on the border with Serbia and close to the town of Szeged, police fired tear gas at 200 migrants, who became agitated when they were informed that they were to have their fingerprints taken.
The mainly Syrian and Afghan migrants fear that, in line with EU rules, if they are stopped later elsewhere in the union they will be returned to Hungary as their official point of entry.
“If I get fingerprinted in Hungary, I don’t go to Germany,” explained Abdul Majed, a 25-year-old language student from Syria. “We make fingerprints in Germany, so you will be a refugee in Germany, not in Hungary.”
Exhausted families trudged along the road through Serbia, hoping to get across the border into Europe, then continue north into the wealthier parts of the continent – such as Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
“It’s been very, very difficult,” said Odei, a Syrian migrant from Deraa, once he reached Hungary. “We were here from yesterday. We are very hungry. There’s no food, there’s no medicine for the children, there’s nothing. We are so tired.”
Yesterday saw another record day for arrivals, with 2,533 detained – up from 2,093 the previous day. More than 10,000 migrants, including many women with babies and small children, have crossed into Serbia over the past few days and headed toward Hungary – meaning that the records for arrivals will continue to be broken.
The government of Hungary, lead by the Right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, has begun construction of a fence, built out of three layers of razor wire, along the border with Serbia in an attempt to stem the flow of arrivals.
Mr Orban has ordered that an 11fthigh fence be built along the 110-mile border. It is expected to be completed in the coming days. But it is hardly a formidable barrier.
One group of migrants, including women and children, crawled under it yesterday, using blankets, sleeping bags, jackets and a stick to raise the wire. As a police car approached, they dashed through a field.
Water cannon will also be sent to Szeged, the largest city in the region. And, as construction of the fence is finalised, helicopters, police dogs, horses and 2,106 extra border patrol officers have been dispatched.
Karoly Papp, the chief commissioner of Hungarian police, said the officers “don’t have and will not get an order to shoot”. Zoltan Kovacs, the government spokesman, said parliament would debate next week whether to employ the army in the border effort.
A Western Balkan summit will be held in Vienna today, with migration high on the agenda.
The EU yesterday released €1.5 million (£1.1 million) worth of humanitarian aid for refugees in Serbia and Macedonia, on the day that Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, urged countries to show compassion and do “much more” to end the crisis.
“Today there are more people displaced than at any time since World War Two,” said Mr Ban, speaking in Paris. “In Syria and elsewhere, millions of people flee violence and persecu- tion. Others try to escape poverty and seek ways of living with dignity.
“By our intervention, we must save lives, fight against trafficking and discrimination, bring judicial solutions, examine the profound causes of problems and defend human rights.”
The Serbian prime minister, Aleksandar Vucic, said yesterday that his country will never close its borders to migrants. He said EU leaders must help frame a plan on how to cope with the influx, but said: “We speak about desperate people. You cannot stop the flow of life with fences.”