Govt: Brussels Refuses To Help Hungary On Migrants Where It Counts
- 11 Jul 2016 9:00 AM
The European Commission has rejected Hungary’s plea for financial assistance for an orphanage which caters to child migrants, a government official told Monday’s Magyar Hírlap newspaper. Bence Rétvári, parliamentary state secretary at the ministry of human resources, told the paper that Brussels “speaks of solidarity in vain” when it comes to actually contributing humanitarian aid.
He noted that the Károly István Centre for Children in Fót, near Budapest, accommodates and cares for minors who have arrived in Hungary without their parents.
Almost all of them are male and 95 percent are between the age of 14 and 18. Currently there are 80-100, though at one point around 300 were accommodated there, he said.
Rétvári noted that the commission has a fund for migrants.
Hungary applied for 3.6 billion forints of aid specifically to care for the child migrants but its request was refused. Last year alone 9,000 migrants without parents turned up in Hungary, he added.
Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.
MTI photo: Máthé Zoltán
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