Thousands of Migrants Arrive at Hungarian Border

Thousands of migrants have arrived at the border of Hungary and Serbia in recent weeks leading to the formation of new makeshift migrant camps.

As the notorious Idomeni camp in Greece is cleared there are fears a similar camp could be well on it way to creation on the Serbian-Hungarian border as thousand of migrants have descended on the area in recent weeks. Just hundreds of meters from the crossing at Roszke/Horgos a new camp is slowly being formed on the Serbian side of the heavily fortified border Spiegel reports

300 migrants currently call this section of the border their home and are camped in makeshift shelters make of blankets and sticks or in tents. As new migrants come on a daily basis it proves that the so called Balkan route is hardly closed. Hungary has announced that they have registered some 15,000 migrants since the start of the year but the majority have only arrived since mid March and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.

13,000 of the migrants were caught by Hungarian border security as they tried to cross the barbed wire fencing and even more are stranded on the Serbian side of the border. In March Hungary closed all of it’s asylum reception centres because the wall which they had built seemed to be working. There had been some signs of migrants gathering along the border there were no more than a thousand.

The transit zone into Hungary allows generally no more than 15 to 20 migrants on a daily basis and never at set times throughout the day. The Hungarians prioritize the sick, old, women with infants and young unaccompanied minors. The new emerging camp is still full of both infants and families, some who have waited there for over a month.

Sanitary conditions at the camp are similar to the Idomeni camp or the Calais Jungle, more or less non existent. There is fresh water but no medical care or working toilets leading to migrants defecating in trenches along the border. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has been visiting the area to provide food and medicine from Hungary and Hungarian authorities have distributed drinking water, bread and canned goods.

The UNHCR wants to set up larger tents and create more of an established settlement for the migrants and said they will try and negotiate with the Hungarian border patrols in order to better supply the migrants at the camp.

Asylum lawyer Tímea Kovács declared that the hard line stance of the Hungarian government is “absurd,” and said that the restriction of border crossings will only make the migrants look for illegal ways to get into Hungary. The Hungarian government countered the claim saying they were simply stopping illegal immigration.