“The detainees at Roszke are held in filthy, overcrowded conditions, hungry, and lacking medical care,” said Peter Bouckaert, Emergencies Director at Human Rights Watch. “The Hungarian authorities have an obligation to ensure that migrants and asylum seekers are held in humane conditions and that their rights are respected.”

Hungarian authorities should take urgent action to improve conditions in and around the Roszke detention centers and make sure that people have access to adequate food and water, shelter and medical care, Human Rights Watch said.

Although, UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, was recently granted access to Roszke, Hungarian authorities have not given permission to journalists or human rights organizations to visit the two police-run detention centers at the Roszke border between Serbia and Hungary, known as Hangar 1 and Hangar 2. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) has access under a long-standing tripartite border monitoring agreement between HHC, UNHCR and the Hungarian police. The agreement, however, only allows HHC access maximum once a month to police run centers on the border and limits what the organization can publicly say.

Human Rights Watch had made a formal request to visit Roszke collection center on August 31, which was rejected by the National Police in Hungary on September 2, citing “interference with police procedures.” Public access is allowed to the “collection ground” – an outdoor area approximately 500 meters from the border where police gather asylum seekers and migrants before transporting them to the Roszke centers. Human Rights Watch was able to obtain footage from Hangar 1 and interviewed 24 asylum seekers from various countries of origin including Syria and Afghanistan currently or formerly detained at the centers.

Inside Hangar 1 and Hangar 2, detainees are kept in small clusters of tents in open air pens created by metal fences, often in overcrowded conditions with insufficient bedding and space for the numbers of persons detained in the pens. Interviews with people held there established that they are given little or no information about the legal rules and safeguards governing their detention and administrative procedures followed by the Hungarian authorities. No interpreters are on permanent stand-by at the facilities, which contributes to the serious communication problems and resulting anxiety and frustration among the migrants and asylum seekers held there.

Many of those interviewed appear to have been held beyond the 36 hour limit allowed by Hungarian law for detention for police registration purposes at the border, and said they had virtually no access to medical care in detention. All of those interviewed said they received barely any edible food, and were not informed whether the food was halal – that is, suitable for Muslims to eat. Drinking water in the camps is in short supply, and many said they had resorted to drinking the unclean water provided for washing.

People described instances in which detainees experienced heart attacks, insulin shock or seizures, and that newborns with serious fevers and vomiting received no medical assistance.

“I begged them for milk for the baby and they just told me to leave,” said a man held with his wife and baby in Roszke. “We needed clean water for the baby and the other children [of other families] but police said to use the dirty water.”

The conditions at the Roszke facilities indicate that the Hungarian authorities, including the border police, lack the capacity to detain, house, and feed the growing numbers of asylum seekers and migrants in a humane manner, Human Rights Watch said. Without greater international assistance to ensure that Hungary meets basic minimum detention practices, in line with its EU obligations, migrants and asylum seekers in Hungary are likely to continue to be held at the border in dismal conditions.

Hungary is facing an influx of migrants and asylum seekers, with nearly 150,000 arrivals since the beginning of 2015 and up to 3,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Hungarian border with Serbia every day in the past week. The number of asylum applications doubled in 2014, putting Hungary second – behind Sweden – for asylum applications per capita among EU countries. But the large numbers do not absolve Hungary of its legal responsibilities, including under the EU reception directive, to treat asylum seekers humanely, including where necessary by requesting assistance from international agencies or the EU, Human Rights Watch said.

Since the beginning of the year, the Hungarian government has engaged in an anti-immigrant campaign including a so-called national consultation, which included a questionnaire to eight million of its citizens that equated immigration with terrorism. In June, the government opened a nationwide billboard campaign with messages in Hungarian saying, “If you come to Hungary, you shouldn’t take the jobs of Hungarians,” and “If you come to Hungary, you must respect our culture.” Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently claimed he was defending “Europe’s Christian culture” from Muslims to justify his policies toward migrants and asylum seekers.

The Hungarian authorities should urgently request assistance from the United Nations and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations to better meet the needs of detained migrants and asylum seekers, and streamline the procedures they use to register asylum seekers and migrants to shorten their time in border detention, Human Rights Watch said. Facilities should be set up to meet international standards, and adequate interpreters and skilled medical personnel should promptly be deployed to the centers.

“The situation for migrants and asylum seekers in Hungary is inhumane and untenable,” Bouckaert said. “The Hungarian government, with help from fellow EU governments and the United Nations, should take concerted action to ensure it can meet its obligations to protect people and treat them humanely.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on refugees and asylum seekers, please visit: https://www.hrw.org/topic/refugees

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Hungary, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/europecentral-asia/hungary