2014 record year in illegal migration, says authority

Budapest, December 31 (MTI) – A record number of more than 36,000 illegal migrants arrived in Hungary in 2014, daily Magyar Nemzet said on Wednesday, quoting an official of the national immigration authority.

Most of the illegal entrants came from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, Árpád Szép, the authority’s director for migration, told the paper.

2014 saw another record, in the number of asylum-seekers, he said.

Until December more than 40,000 have applied for asylum which is over twice as many as in 2013, and is a twentyfold increase in the annual average recorded in the 2000s, Szép said.

He said there were instances this year when 800-1,000 people requested assistance from the authority on a single day, adding that it had been handling as many clients during a week these days as during a whole year at the turn of the century.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters