From our special correspondent in Hungary,
Along platform 10 of Nyugati station in Budapest, dozens of figures dressed in red, green and blue vests are busy on this Friday afternoon. Some carry boxes full of bananas and oranges. Others wear a sign around their neck offering transport or translations into Russian and Ukrainian. Under the golden moldings of this room transformed into a humanitarian center, volunteers from Christian associations and mobilized NGOs are trying to respond to the emergency. “500 to 1,000 people alight every four hours from trains that arrive day and night from the border,” says Peter, 38, coordinator of a Hungarian Catholic association.
Each time, the same ballet takes place and the passengers come out of the station with their arms full of bottles of water and biscuits. At the exit of the center, suitcases pile up and hot cups of coffee pass from hand to hand. Irina arrived in Budapest with three friends a few hours earlier. About her hasty departure from Kiev and the bombardments, she will say nothing. “I can’t tell. It makes me cry, it’s too hard, ”she sweeps. Looking towards her smoking goblet, the young dark-haired woman simply slips: “It feels good, the journey was tiring. The people here have all been very nice. »
“Nothing has changed since 2015”
Under a tent installed on the forecourt of Nyugati, five young volunteers type on their computer and constantly pick up their phones. Their association, Migration Aid, was born in August 2015. A simple Facebook page originally created to coordinate donations of food, drinks and clothing for the benefit of refugees who then came from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, Migration Aid has structured itself over time. Seven years after this first crisis managed with barbed wire by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, “nothing has changed”, judge Viktoria Horvath, the association’s spokeswoman. “There is still no asylum or reception system worthy of the name in Hungary,” said the young woman.
In fact, both inside the humanitarian center and outside the station, there were no officials or government officials – apart from a few police officers – to organize the reception of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. In his speech, however, the very conservative Viktor Orban seems to have made a 180 degree turn on the subject of asylum. “All those fleeing Ukraine will find a friend in Hungary,” he promised at the start of the war. Less than a month before a legislative election that promises to be tight for Orban and his majority, the government has also adopted a decree to offer Ukrainian refugees temporary protection. “That’s what the law says. But between the law and what we see on the ground, there is a big difference”, points out András Léderer, in charge of advocacy for the Hungarian branch of the Helsinki Committee.
An inflection in the speech
According to information from the lawyer, only a hundred Ukrainian refugees have so far applied for this new type of protection. “There is a glaring lack of information on this subject, especially when they arrive at the border,” adds András Léderer. Like Viktoria Horvath of Migration Aid, the 30-year-old considers that “nothing has changed fundamentally in Orban’s policy”. And the distinction made again by the government between “illegal migrants” from the Middle East and the Ukrainian refugees attest to it, he judges.
The reception of refugees therefore continues to depend essentially on the mobilization of citizens in Hungary. Agnes, 52, joined Migration Aid just a few days ago. “I came to the station for the first time to drop off baby food and I wanted to be useful. They needed people to find accommodation solutions, ”explains this resident of Budapest. At his side, the spokesperson completes: “We received so many offers of help that we had to create an e-mail address dedicated to this Ukrainian crisis. We are contacted every day by hundreds of people offering rooms or accommodation to accommodate refugees for one night, two nights or a week. And the proposals do not concern only Budapest, but all of Hungary. »
Support from elsewhere
In the voices and in the looks, we feel the “pride” of those who come to give their time to help their Ukrainian neighbors. “This momentum is quite moving, I must say,” says András Léderer, who has been defending the rights of refugees for more than ten years. And unlike the 2015 crisis, civil society can also count on the commitment of private companies. This Friday, the legal department of the Airbnb platform contacted MigrationAid, says Viktoria Horvath: “They offered to put us in touch with the hosts registered on their site. This is really excellent news for us, because we had a lot of difficulty finding accommodation available for a very short time and in an emergency, at night”.
In August 2015, due to a lack of accommodation structures and permanent solutions, tents were hastily erected on the forecourt of the huge Keleti station. Seven years later, the largest hotel in the country, the Danubius Hotel Hungaria, located just opposite this station, announced the availability of its 499 rooms for Ukrainian refugees. Closed for months for renovations, the establishment reopened on March 1. In a statement sent to the Hungarian press, Balázs Kovács, CEO of the hotel group said: “Our company could not remain inactive during this tragic period in a neighboring country. We consider it our duty to help those fleeing war and to contribute to their care. How long ago the days of barbed wire seem.