The programme was launched on Friday “to help ethnic Hungarians and anyone fleeing Ukraine for their lives”, the prime minister’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said last week.

Aid centres set up on the Ukrainian-Hungarian border will receive 10 million forints each of the funds, which were collected through a phone line and charity organisations.

Miklós Soltész, the state secretary for church and state relations and head of the National Humanitarian Coordination Council, said the aid points further inland in the localities of Lónya, Barabás, Beregsurány and Tiszabecs would also receive support to “ensure order and free passage” near the border.

Fidesz-KDNP Collects Tonnes of Donations for Ethnic Hungarians, Refugees

A nationwide donation drive launched by Hungary’s ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat (KDNP) alliance has collected several tonnes of donations for ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine and people fleeing the fighting in the country, the parties said.

Hungary must do everything it can to stay out of the war between Russia and Ukraine, KDNP lawmaker Lőrinc Nacsa said in a video message from Miskolc, in north-eastern Hungary.

Katalin Csöbör, a lawmaker of Fidesz added, at the same time, that the ruling parties were helping the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia and those fleeing Ukraine.

Fidesz’s Miskolc office is filled with donations and some have even offered to open their empty flats to refugees, Csöbör said, adding that the parties were continuously looking for more places in the city to accommodate refugees.


MTI Photo: Zsolt Czeglédi