According to human rights activists, the EU country Hungary is starving asylum seekers in so-called transit zones on the border with Serbia.
An Iraqi couple had only received food after Thursday’s five-day deprivation of food on Thursday after an emergency order by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), a spokesman for the Hungarian Helsinki Committee told the news portal „index.hu“. The three children of the couple were taken care of during this time.
The parents fed on the remnants left over from the children during the five days, the spokesman said. The Helsinki Committee sees this treatment as torture, he added.
Hungary’s authorities had already caused outrage in August last year by similarly starving eight asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Syria in the transit zone. At that time, as now, these were refugees whose asylum applications had been rejected at first instance. „Starvation“ should force people to renounce their appeal.
The transit zones in the border towns of Röszke and Tompa are the only places where people can apply for asylum in Hungary. Only very few asylum seekers are let in, mostly waiting for many months in Serbia. The transit zones function as closed storage directly at the border. Since they can be left by gates to Serbia, the Hungarian government is of the opinion that the people are there „voluntarily“. However, anyone who returns to Serbia automatically loses his status as an asylum seeker in Hungary.
Under the right-wing national prime minister Viktor Orban, Hungary pursues a policy of isolation and deterrence against refugees and migrants.
