BUDAPEST, Hungary, Sept. 11 (UPI) — Human-rights activist are urging Hungarian authorities to take immediate action after two videos showed police officers throwing bags of food to a crush of Syrian migrants at a refugee camp.
The footage showed at least 100 migrants with arms outstretched frantically trying to grab small bags of food being lobbed in the crowd by police wearing helmets and surgical masks.
Human Rights Watch said the migrants, housed in two camps in Roszke near the Hungarian-Serbian border, are being held in “filthy, overcrowded conditions, hungry and lacking medical care.”
“The Hungarian authorities have an obligation to ensure that migrants and asylum seekers are held in humane conditions and that their rights are respected,” said Peter Bouckaert, the organization’s emergency director.
Michaela Spritzendorfer-Ehrenhauser, wife of Austrian politician Alexander Spritzendorfer, filmed the videos Wednesday while visiting the camp with the Hungarian Red Cross. She said the migrants were being treated like “animals” in the camps. Hungary has become a key entry point for many of the migrants as they make their way to other European Union countries, including Germany and Sweden.
“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,” Spritzendorfer-Ehrenhauser told the BBC. “It’s really a responsibility of European politicians to open the borders now.”
The video comes as Hungary’s prime minister warned migrants will be arrested beginning next week if they cross the border illegally. Viktor Orban said thousands of migrants have been ignoring the country’s laws.
