Hungary announced on Sunday that it is closing access to its border "transit camps" for asylum seekers due to the risk of spreading the coronavirus, as thousands of migrants attempt to join the EU from Turkey . "We see a certain link between the coronavirus and illegal migrants," said Gyorgy Bakondi, adviser to the Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a press conference. Hungary has not yet reported any cases of coronavirus.
Since the 2015 migration crisis, Hungary, ruled by a government hostile to welcoming refugees, has erected a partially electrified fence along its border with Serbia, and that with Croatia. Stopped by this barrier, migrants who wish to enter Hungary have no choice but to pass through one of the two "transit zones" installed at the border: these are camps made up of containers and surrounded by barbed wire where their asylum claim is examined.
“Detention” centers criticized
The Hungarian “transit zones” have been widely criticized by human rights defenders and the EU as being “detention centers”, the European Commission also denouncing the “refusal of food” by the Hungarian authorities. According to the NGOs, only a handful of migrants are admitted to these camps every week and their asylum request is systematically rejected if it is proven that they passed through Serbia or Greece, considered as safe countries. According to Gyorgy Bakondi, 321 people are currently in "transit zones".
The measure announced by Budapest on Sunday "closes access to asylum" in Hungary, deplored the Hungarian NGO Comité Helsinki, the camps being since 2017 the only places where an asylum request can be made.
Hungary's announcement came as Ankara has allowed thousands of migrants to head for the border with Greece, the EU's gateway, since Friday, with the aim of putting pressure on European leaders at the time. where Turkey is conducting an offensive in Syria. "Hungary will not open or let anyone pass," said Gyorgy Bakondi, adding that police and military reinforcements would be sent to the borders of the country which had seen tens of thousands of exiles in transit at the height of the crisis. migration in 2015.
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