Hungary installs border fence to stop migrants
Hungarian soldiers have started building a fence on the border with Serbia, an effort meant to stop the rising flow of migrants trying to enter the European Union.
On the outskirts of the southern village of Asotthalom, soldiers used heavy machinery to drive metal rods into the ground, the first steps in the construction of the 13ft high fence which the government wants completed by August 31 along the 109-mile border.
Work on the fence is being carried out at several locations at once, with around 900 soldiers taking part in the project. Some elements of the fence, including the razor wire to be placed on top of the barrier, is being prepared by inmates from Hungarian prisons, and people in a state work programme may also be sent to help the soldiers.
More than 100,000 migrants have reached Hungary on routes across the Balkans so far in 2015, compared with fewer than 43,000 asylum seekers last year and 18,900 in 2013.
While most of the earlier migrants were from Kosovo, over the past several months about 80% of them are from war zones like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly all request asylum in Hungary but try to move to EU countries further west like Germany, Sweden or Britain before their claims are settled.
Ahmed Saad, a refugee from the Yazidi Kurdish community in Iraq, said his group had walked across Turkey and Bulgaria from their home town of Sinjar.
“We left all – my job, my car, my house, all things – because we ran going to Germany,” Mr Saad said near Asotthalom shortly after crossing into Hungary.
From this month, the Hungarian government has also enacted tougher migration rules like speedy procedures to determine the merit of asylum requests and the possibility to detain refugees for longer periods.
