Authorities caught more than 30,000 migrants, almost 300 human smugglers in 2021

Pressure on the Greece-North Macedonia border from illegal migration is growing and will soon be felt at Hungary’s southern border, the Prime Minister’s domestic security adviser said on Wednesday.

György Bakondi told public broadcaster Kossuth Rádió that the

Hungarian authorities have caught 31,300 people at the border so far this year,

and 284 human smugglers have been prosecuted. These numbers, he added, are far in excess of those in the same period last year.

Stricter regulations connected with the coronavirus epidemic have made people smuggling a harder prospect, with a concomitant effect on costs, so many migrants priced out of the professional smuggling market are turning up at the Hungarian border unaided and without any kind of support, he said, noting that most are therefore caught at the fence.

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Meanwhile, interviewed on public television channel M1, Bakondi referred to a new European Commission draft measure aimed to

strengthen the legal and practical framework for voluntary return from Europe and transit countries,

saying it was problematic that a high number of migrants lacked documents, their identities were unclear and countries of origin did not want to readmit them.