Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Hungarian police bring food for migrants in a refugee camp near Roszke on 11 September 2015
Footage has emerged of migrants being thrown bags of food at a Hungarian camp near the border with Serbia.
An Austrian woman who shot the video said the migrants were being treated like “animals”. Human Rights Watch’s emergency director said people were being held like “cattle in pens”.
Hungary says it is investigating the scenes at the camp in Roszke.
Meanwhile, Central European ministers again rejected a mandatory quota system for sharing out migrant arrivals.
“We’re convinced that as countries we should keep control over the number of those we are able to accept and then offer them support,” Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said at a press conference with his Hungarian, Polish and Slovak counterparts.
The European Commission, with Germany’s backing, has proposed sharing out 160,000 asylum seekers a year between 23 of the EU’s 28 members.
The Central European states had already rejected the plan, even though they would take in far fewer refugees than Germany if the EU backs it. European Council President Donald Tusk has said he will call an emergency summit later this month if a solution is not found soon.
In recent weeks, tens of thousands of migrants have been desperately trying to make their way to Europe from war-torn Syria and Libya. Many travel through Hungary to Germany, Austria and Sweden – wealthier EU nations with more liberal asylum laws.
Hungary has become a key point on the journey. The footage comes from a camp at Roszke, where large numbers of migrants have built up.
It was filmed by Michaela Spritzendorfer, the wife of an Austrian Green party politician who was delivering aid to the camp, and Klaus Kufner, a journalist and activist.
“These people have been on a terrible tour for three months,” said Michaela Spritzendorfer.
“Most of them have been across the sea now and on the boat and through the forest and they’ve gone through terrible things and we, as Europe, we keep them there in camps like animals,” she told the BBC. “It’s really a responsibility of European politicians to open the borders now.”
Human Rights Watch said migrants were being kept in “abysmal” conditions at two detention centres in Roszke, lacking food and medical care. The group quoted two migrants who described the conditions as only fit for animals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x25RsjAYo_g
BBC