PM advisor: Goverment will not be pressured into opening border to migrants

Budapest, July 25 (MTI) – Hungary’s government will not be pressured into opening up its borders to migrants, the prime minister’s chief domestic security advisor said on Monday.

On Sunday 130 of the 300-400 migrants who had set off from Belgrade to Serbia’s northern border late last week arrived at the Horgos-Roszke border zone demanding passage through Hungary to western Europe. The migrants, mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, told public news channel M1’s correspondent that they planned to start a hunger strike in protest of Hungary’s tightened border rules.

György Bakondi told M1 that protests like the one being planned right now on the border are often not organised by the migrants themselves but by civil groups aiming to pressure the Hungarian government into opening up its border “and letting everyone through” to Austria. “This is not going to happen,” Bakondi insisted.

None of the 130 migrants who arrived on Sunday have submitted asylum requests to Hungarian authorities, the prime minister’s advisor said. A total of 166 people attempted to cross Hungary’s southern border illegally between Sunday midnight and 6am on Monday, Bakondi added.

Source: MTI