A Hungarian’s view on the refugee crisis

Noemi Keresztes, a Hungarian national living in Bristol, gives her views on a continental crisis boiling over in her home country.

It’s not often that my home country makes the headlines for several consecutive days, but this week it did. The refugee crisis has reached its limit in Hungary. The government are toughening their actions, making it impossible for thousands of asylum seekers to enter the countries they wished to live in since the Syrian war began.

When you turn on the TV or your computer all you see is images of tired and hungry people risking their lives to get onto boats and over borders just take their families to a safe place where they can re-build their lives. But you also see that the Hungarian government is doing everything they can to prevent that from happening.

They stopped letting refugees get onto trains (which they have already payed hundreds of euros for) and now about 2,000 people are stuck at Hungary’s busiest train station, unable to carry on. They are increasing the height of the fences at the Serbian border to minimize people’s chances to carry on their journeys.

Everyone has the right to think that Hungarians don’t care about the refugees because all the evidence in the media says so. However, they don’t talk about how the citizens of Hungary actually feel about the crisis – I can assure you that their emotions are a lot different to the government’s.

Daily, I see photos and posts people post on social media about how hopeless they feel, unable to help because they don’t know whether they should or they are allowed to. They cannot bear to see young, hungry mothers holding their even hungrier babies and children and feel like they have an obligation to help. But the police block the entrances and exits of the places where refugees are trapped.

Children are holding up signs, begging the Hungarian government to let them carry on. The refugees haven’t caused physical harm to the citizens. Despite this, new anti-migrant legislation have been introduced to tighten asylum rules; this includes arresting asylum seekers in temporary refugee camps, speeding up the assessments and reducing the number of appeals.

People don’t feel this is fair at all. Asylum seekers didn’t ask for money or food, their goal was to get to a certain place but they have to go through Hungary in order to get to their new home. Many are now changing their routes and have to take a detour. They now have to go through Croatia and Slovenia and move towards Austria, which means more hours of walking and more money spent on train tickets.

The images are heart-breaking and protests are taking place. It seems like the crisis is hopeless as more and more refugees are making their way towards Europe. Countries were not prepared for the large volume of people, and it is understandable that Hungary is trying to make their own rules to aid the process.

However, the legislation they have introduced do not help anyone; not the asylum seekers, not the Hungarian citizens, not the Hungarian government. If authorities let the refugees do what they intended to do the country wouldn’t have the issue of having thousands of people stuck in Budapest’s train station.

As a Hungarian citizen myself, I feel the obligation to do the best I can in order to maintain Hungary’s positive reputation, and I would like to urge the government to re-think their actions so far and introduce laws that would aid the crisis and help those in need.

Pictures from Shutterstock