Refugee ping-pong between Austria and Hungary

Origo.hu reports how refugees who have passports and are going to Vienna are taken off the train in Budapest, while others can move along. Two are sent back, one is allowed in. A reporter of origo shared his experience of travelling with two refugees to Vienna from Bicske by train.

One of the refugees, Mohamed Droubi entered Austria illegally at the border of Hegyeshalom. He and the others paid 150 Euros to human traffickers, but the van was stopped by the police, so he – not even knowing which of the countries he is in – ran away. Only after he was sure that he was in Austria he went to the policemen and asked for a refugee status, begging them not to be sent back to the Hungarian closed camp of Nyírbátor, which was like a prison for him: he was shout at and sometimes even beaten. Eventually, they sent him to an open camp in Austria.

He and the reporter met a friend of his in Vienna, another Syrian refugee, Mohamed Farousse, with whom they have been helping each other since they met in Bicske. Farousse escaped from the military service, as after he fulfilled the obligatory service he again received a draft to fight in the civil war on the side of Assad. But he did not want to participate in the war anymore, for he had relatives living in the affected area, thus, as he did not see another option, decided to escape. Now he tries to get to a sibling of his in Germany, where he would get a job at a port, as a technician, and then would get his wife out of Syria, too. Droubi ran away from Syria because – thanks to the war – he and other people could not work anymore, and wants to take his mother and sister to Germany too.

Farousse has a valid “protected” passport, with which he is allowed to travel to any country in the world. Therefore, he decided to take the train at Keleti railway station in Budapest. But he was taken off the train when his papers were checked (both by a Hungarian and an Austrian) policemen and apart from his ticket and passport he showed his protection card which said that he was not allowed to go abroad. Later, he took the train again, but he got on at Bicske, to get to Vienna through Tatabánya. There he took a Railjet, by which he could get to Austria.

The reporter writes that the station in Vienna is like other multicultural cities’ transport hub, so at a first sight it is not that noticeable that the refugee crisis has not been over yet. Droubi told them that only the previous day 100 people going to Germany were turned back to the camp by police officers in Salzburg. Just as the trio were talking they saw two men accompanied by two officers, holding their passports. They went to the train to Budapest, the officers gave the men their passports, pointed at the door, and the men got onto the train to Hungary.

However, the reporter could not find out who those men were, why they had to go back to Hungary. The spokesperson of the Viennese police, though, told him that he probably witnessed a deporting because those men had been in Austria illegally, so they sent them back to where they came from without taking further measures.

Copy editor: bm

Source: origo.hu