EU warns Hungary over Afghan refugees

The European Commission has warned Hungary over its ill-treatment of migrants and refugees, including depriving some of food, and trying to force others back to Afghanistan in violation of human right laws.

The European Commission has warned Hungary over its ill-treatment of migrants and refugees, including depriving some of food, and trying to force others back to Afghanistan in violation of human right laws.

“We are concerned of the reports of the treatment of migrants in Hungary, we take such allegations quite seriously,” a European Commission spokeswoman told reporters in Brussels on Monday.

The expression of concern from the Berlaymont follows Hungary’s failed efforts last week to deport three families back to Afghanistan, in what Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described as deeply shocking.

Two families were forced back into Serbia, while a third family remains in Hungary’s transit zone after the European Court of Human Rights granted an injunction preventing them from being removed.

Despite promises by Hungarian authorities to start feeding the failed asylum seekers, the NGO documented another eight cases between February and April this year.

Twenty-one people have gone hungry in what the NGO describes as “starvation cases”.