Many European countries are already over-stretched, yet determined to meet the challenge of taking in the thousands of asylum-seekers crossing over their borders. Hungary, along with several other EU nations, has been adamant in saying they don’t want any refugees.
Hungary has been a transit country for thousands of asylum-seekers entering Europe, as they seek to reach wealthier countries like Germany, Sweden, and Austria. But Hungary says it has been bearing the brunt of the migrant crisis, and rather than let the refugees move on, the government has set up camps where the migrants are detained until they can be processed.
A Hungarian government spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs says that refugees are only in the detention center for a few hours in an “optimal case,” but they can remain there for up to two days under a procedure permitted by the EU.
The detention center in Roszke has already been in the news because of an incident where a Hungarian journalist kicked a refugee last week. This is the same camp where an undercover video was filmed of Hungarian police, equipped with helmets and hygienic face masks, throwing bags of sandwiches over the fence to a crowd of about 150 people.
No water or sanitation in the detention center
Doctors Without Borders site leader, Teresa Sancristobal, spoke with reporters on Saturday evening, voicing the concerns of the doctors and other health workers in the Roszke camp over the chance of an epidemic occurring.
She talked about the lack of sanitation and medical supplies in the camp. “When you have no running water, no way to clean and people are arriving with contagious diseases, you have a problem,” she said.
There have been dozens of vehicles bringing in aid supplies from the U.S., UK, and Germany, including blankets, food, and clothing. Volunteers are struggling to find storage space for all the clothing, but most of the donated clothing has ended up on the ground.
“We had a 22-tonne truck show up unannounced yesterday,” British volunteer Mark Wade said. “That’s great but we don’t know what to do with it.” And while the storage of donated clothing may seem like a monumental worry to the volunteers, it pales in comparison to the worries over the spread of disease.
Pregnant women are especially worrisome to doctors. Many of them have traveled on foot for weeks for the war zones in the Middle East. “We have a lot of pregnant women who are just exhausted and can’t take it anymore,” volunteer medical student Sarah Schober said.
Exhaustion and dehydration are additional problems cited by health workers. Children are especially vulnerable. One volunteer talks about a 12-year-old girl who walked several miles with a broken knee after being hit by a taxi in Serbia.
The United Nations refugee agency is also stretched thin but is organizing more portable toilets and clean-up operations. But even with all this, the Hungarian government has been slow to move refugees on to registration centers, and thousands of people of all ages are left to sleep in the fields every night.
“People are shitting and peeing between tents because there is nowhere to go. With the warmer weather, we are one step away from an epidemic,” said Schober.
Hungary closes its borders on Tuesday
All the planning for improvements at the refugee camp may come to naught if on Tuesday, Hungary closes it borders. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday came under fire because of the controversial new law that will be implemented on Tuesday this week.
“These migrants do not come indeed from the war zone to us, but from camps in neighbouring countries … Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey,” he told the mass-selling Bild newspaper. “These people do not come to Europe because they are looking for security; they want a better life than in the camps. They want a German or a Swedish life.”
When Orban was asked where asylum seekers would go if they couldn’t cross into Hungary, the prime minister was very blunt, saying, “Back to where they came from.”
