A DESPERATE migrant threw himself, his wife and his child on to the train track in Hungary yesterday screaming that he would rather die then be sent to a camp.
Hungarian police immediately rushed in, manhandled him and his family, dragging them off the tracks, handcuffing him and taking him away. The incident happened at a station in Bickse, a short distance from Budapest, where more than 100 refugees had been taken off a train and surrounded by police. The police declared the station an ‘operation zone’ and have instructed the media to leave.
Thousands of migrants stranded at Budapest’s main rail station for two days were herded onto the train, without being told where they were being taken. The train, which left the Budapest station bound for Hungary’s border with Austria, stopped around 30 miles outside of the capital, with riot police ordering people off the train. Migrants refusing to get off the train then began shouting ‘No camp! No camp!’.
Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban said Hungary would not allow migrants to leave its territory without registering at the camps. The migrants feared that if they registered in Hungary they would never leave that country. Viktor Orban claimed that the migrant crisis facing Europe is a ‘German problem’ since Germany is where those arriving in the EU ‘would like to go’.
Meanwhile in the Czech Republic, police officers were pictured writing numbers on migrants’ hands. Czech authorities appeared totally unaware that the scene was reminiscent of Nazi Germany. During the Holocaust, prisoners at Auschwitz were systematically tattooed with serial numbers. A picture also surfaced yesterday morning showing a small boy lying face down in the sand, dead on a Turkish beach.
The child, who is thought to be Syrian, drowned in an attempt to flee the war-ravaged country. It is in this situation that the Tory British Prime Minister Cameron reiterated his position that he will not allow any more refugees into Britain. Over 170,000 people have signed a parliamentary petition calling for Britain to accept more refugees. It is going up by 500 a minute.
Britain has granted asylum to less than 130 Syrian refugees since the start of 2014 compared to Germany, where up to 800,000 refugees are expected to be registered this year alone. Labour leadership front runner, Jeremy Corbyn accused Cameron of failing in his responsibility as Prime Minister: ‘Nobody could fail to be moved by this harrowing and heartbreaking image,’ he said.
‘It should remind us of the situation facing millions of people desperately fleeing a terrible civil war.
‘The government’s response to the refugee crisis has been wholly inadequate, and we are being shamed by our European neighbours. ‘It is our duty under UN law, but also as human beings, to offer a place of safety, and play a role internationally to share our responsibilities, and to try to end the conflict.’
Tory Chancellor George Osborne claimed that he was ‘shocked’ when he saw the picture of the dead boy on the beach. However, rather than take in more migrants, Osborne said that we have to tackle the problem ‘at source’. He said: ‘First of all we have to tackle ISIS and the criminal gangs that killed that boy.’ In other words bomb Syria.
Frank Sweeney, General Secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party, said: ‘The borders must be opened immediately to allow refugees in. The government must take its shared responsibility for the bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria that has driven refugees in their millions to flee for their lives.
‘This government must be made to resign and put out of office and the trade unions are the force to do that. The unions need to take action to establish that refugees are welcome in this country and that this government is brought down.’