With bowls of goulash, offers of free lodging and rides to Budapest, or just a hug and kind word, Hungarians have rushed to the Ukrainian border to help refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.
For Janos Molnar, one of dozens of Hungarians waiting on Sunday at the Tiszabecs border crossing with food and aid supplies, the support is a “moral duty.”
“I have three empty rooms at home in my nearby town, these people have been through hell,” the 50-year-old said while holding a placard written in Ukrainian.
Photo: AFP
More than 70,000 refugees have streamed into Hungary from Ukraine since Thursday according to police data.
Pulling their suitcases toward the throng of stalls with water and food packages, a weary group from conflict-torn Donetsk and Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine gratefully accepted Molnar’s offer.
The invasion triggered a rapid response by ordinary Hungarians, with citizens, church charities and mayors of border towns springing into action.
“When we saw what was happening we set up a Facebook appeal for donations,” said Zoltan Havasi, a bike courier who runs the Budapest Bike Mafia charity in the Hungarian capital.
Within hours, thousands of people delivered canned food, mattresses, sanitary and baby products to a warehouse, the 46-year-old said.
“People wanted to actively help, not just send money,” he said before setting off for the border from Budapest in a convoy of a dozen vans.
“There is more than is needed now, but a lot of it is non-perishable,” convoy co-organizer Akos Toth said as he unloaded the items in the border town of Zahony, part of a human chain of local volunteers.
“It will be useful if or when the situation in Ukraine escalates,” said Toth, founder of a children’s aid agency called Age of Hope.
Van driver Attila Aszodi said that he would take refugees to Budapest on the return ride and “come back tomorrow if needed.”
“I saw on the Internet that they were looking for drivers with their own vehicles, so I drove straight over,” the 44-year-old businessman said. “This is about humanity, anyone of us can suddenly become a refugee, as we saw this week in Ukraine.”
Zahony Mayor Laszlo Helmeczi said that about 5,000 people have arrived by train since Thursday, mostly women and children.
Helmeczi, 50, converted the town cultural center into a makeshift refugee hostel, arranging 300 mattresses in rooms normally used for concerts and exhibitions.
The efforts echo a similar humanitarian response in 2015 when Middle Eastern and African refugees and migrants poured through Hungary at the peak of Europe’s refugee crisis.
Some were stranded for weeks at a railway station in Budapest, dependent on aid brought by civil relief groups.
Unlike then, anti-migration Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who built a razor-wire fence in 2015 and border detention camps to keep out refugees and migrants, has now opened the EU member’s door to Ukrainians.
A government decree on Friday exempted anyone arriving from Ukraine from Hungary’s tough asylum laws, granting them temporary protection.
“Everyone fleeing Ukraine will find a friend in the Hungarian state,” Orban said in an interview on Sunday.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS