Hungarian authorities help unite Ukrainian refugee family

An Ukrainian refugee family left their six-year-old daughter behind at a refugee support point by accident. Luckily, the Hungarian police and volunteers quickly acted and watched over the child until the family came back to collect her.

Index reports that a Ukrainian couple and their eight children crossed the Hungarian border at Tiszabecs to flee from war-torn Ukraine on 11^th March late at night.

When the authorities present asked them if they needed any help, the couple said that they had already organised their trip to Germany and they would leave the refugee support point in a few hours.

Volunteers and people from the Hungarian Baptist Aid at the Tiszabecs refugee support point also supported this statement and within a few hours, someone came to pick the family up.

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On 12^th March at around one in the morning the family left in two cars to Germany.

Blikk reports, however, that Tibor Hári, the executive director-general of the Hungarian Baptist Aid, recalled that one of his colleagues ran to him distressed and told him that there was a major problem:

an approximately six-year-old girl was crying and looking for help because she had lost her family.

The colleagues of the aid suspected that the child might have been part of the family that had just left. They immediately notified the police at the refugee support point.

Unfortunately, they had no information about the cars whatsoever, and they could only guess at their course, Index wrote.

The officers immediately informed the headquarters and passed the information down to all units in the region. Despite their efforts, however, they did not manage to find the cars.

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Blikk writes that with the help of interpreters, the girl recalled that she was in the bathroom when the family left. The authorities and volunteers tried to reconstruct what might have happened and they concluded that since the parents were in separate cars, they might have thought that their daughter was with the other parent.

While the authorities tried to find the girl’s parents, the colleagues of the charity organisation tried to console the girl, feed her and keep her entertained. 

Luckily, after about eight hours, the Hungarian police received a phone call informing them that a family reported their missing daughter in Hungary. Not long after, the family returned to the support point to collect their child.

On 12^th March at night, the family tearfully reunited with their daughter at Tiszabecs.

In the hurry and havoc of fleeing their country, the Ukrainian refugee family might have just simply miscounted their children when leaving.

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Source: index.hu, blikk.hu