EUROPE-MIGRANTS/ROSZKE CAMP UPDATE Migrants herded to "Alien Holding Centre" in Hungarian border town

Record ID: 141722

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/ROSZKE CAMP UPDATE Migrants herded to "Alien Holding Centre" in Hungarian border town
  • Date: 6th September 2015
  • Summary: HUNGARIAN SIDE OF BORDER WITH SERBIA NEAR ROSZKE, HUNGARY (SEPTEMBER 6, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS WALKING IN THE FIELD, ENTERING HUNGARY FROM FROM SERBIA NEAR ROSZKE, HUNGARY (SEPTEMBER 6, 2015) (REUTERS) MIGRANTS GATHERED ON ROADSIDE / MAN IN WHEEL CHAIR RECEIVING WATER BOTTLE FROM GIRL VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS WALKING ON RAILWAY TRACK (SOUNDBITE) (English) REFUGEE FROM SYRIAN TOWN OF AL-RAQQAH, RAMI AL RASHID, SAYING: "We told them we got money, we just (need) transport, nobody... buses, taxis, refuse to take us and also markets refuse to sell us food." POLICEMEN HOLDING DOG ON LEASH / MIGRANTS RESTING ON THE GROUND IN BACKGROUND POLICEMAN WITH DOG POLICE STANDING IN FRONT OF MIGRANTS SITTING ON THE GROUND MIGRANTS SITTING ON THE GROUND MIGRANTS AND POLICE (SOUNDBITE) (English) REFUGEE FROM SYRIA, MUHAMMAD , SAYING: "We are waiting for taking our names, and let us go by buses to Budapest by free." RED CROSS WORKER WALKING PAST MIGRANTS AND POLICE BEHIND WIRE FENCE VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS STANDING IN LINE INSIDE CAMP (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) RED CROSS WORKER, KRISZTIAN URSINYL, SAYING: "I arrived this morning, so I am new here. Every area (in camp) has designated toilets, places for buses, so conditions are so good that if necessary, I would come (here) with my family." BUSES LEAVING CAMP / POLICEMEN WATCHING MIGRANTS SITTING INSIDE BUS PEOPLE WALKING INSIDE CAMP CAMP WITH TENTS
  • Embargoed: 21st September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Hungary
  • Country: Hungary
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA30Q84LV7I3A74V5SRQMACY4OM
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Hungarian police herded hundreds of migrants past 4-metre (13-foot) high fences topped with razor wire into a new "Alien Holding Centre" on its southern border on Sunday (September 6), readying a security clampdown on an unremitting influx from Serbia.
    The right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Europe's most vociferous critics of mass immigration to Europe, has vowed to cut illegal border crossings from Serbia to zero as of Sept. 15, with a 175-km barrier and stringent new laws. He has asked parliament to approve sending in the army.
    In the south, hundreds of new arrivals - among over 1,200 who had entered by midday (1000 GMT) - wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags against the cold, were rounded up and sent to a new camp nestled among trees just inside Hungary near the town of Roszke.
    Some migrants said they had encountered unfriendly attitude from the locals.
    "We told them we got money, we just (need) transport, nobody... buses, taxis, refuse to take us and also markets refuse to sell us food," said 23-year-old Rami Al Rashid, a refugee from the Syrian town of Al Raqqah.
    Police called it an "Alien Holding Centre", and said it contained 100 large, green heated tents for 1,000 people. It was opened at the weekend and located nearby another, older camp where migrants have revolted in recent days, breaking down wooden barriers and fleeing for the nearby motorway. Migrants have complained about conditions at the older camp, which was frequently over-crowded.
    Authorities stressed that the new facility was a "registration centre" -- not a "transit zone" -- where migrants can be held for some 24 hours, and is part of a stepped-up effort to channel the several thousand migrants pouring across Balkan borders every day.
    A Red Cross worker praised the conditions at the new camp.
    "I arrived this morning, so I am new here. Every area (in camp) has designated toilets, places for buses, so conditions are so good that if necessary, I would come (here) with my family," said Krisztian Ursinyl on Sunday.
    The transit zones were approved last week by parliament as camps located in a narrow border strip where migrants would be held while their asylum applications are processed and, if denied, would be ejected back into Serbia.
    The government says migrants held there will not technically be deemed as having entered Hungarian territory, creating a legal limbo which right groups say may affect their rights and Hungary's obligations towards them. Rights groups say the zones also appear designed to contain detention facilities, where migrants suspected to have broken the law by, for example, damaging the border fence, would be held.
    Construction crews are completing a 3.5-metre high fence along the length of Hungary's border with Serbia to keep the migrants out, shrugging off the symbolism and Cold War echoes of razor-wire barriers and watch-towers along borders in ex-Communist eastern Europe. Orban told Serbia last week to "be prepared" for Sept. 15; the ex-Yugoslav republic called for EU cash to help address what may turn into a dangerous bottleneck.
    Hungary says it has no choice, having registered 165,000 migrants entering this year, flowing through the Balkan peninsula by boat and dinghy from Turkey to Greece and then over land through Macedonia and Serbia. Orban has painted Europe's worst refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s as a threat to European prosperity, identity and "Christian values". Countless more may have entered undetected.
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