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Hungary: A night of protest at the train station

Overnight protests at Hungarian station as authorities refused to honour purchased tickets, barred refugees from trains.

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RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
As refugees queued in front of the station's main door to be sure to have a space on the trains leaving for Germany, authorities announced they would not be able to board the trains. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
By Lazar Simeonov
Published On 3 Sep 2015

Budapest, Hungary – The number of refugees arriving in Greece and travelling towards the western countries of the European Union through Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary has increased dramatically in the second half of August and these countries have all had trouble dealing with the surge.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported that more than 350,000 people, many from war-torn Syria, have made the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean so far this year. 

On September 1, only days after the German government had announced that they are ready to accept all Syrian asylum seekers, regardless of which EU country they had entered first, Hungary decided to close Budapest’s Keleti train station where several thousand refugees were waiting to board trains towards Austria and then Germany.

In response, refugees began protesting against the conditions at the station and demanding to be allowed to leave Hungary. They expressed their anger at having paid a considerable amount of money for the train tickets only to be prevented from boarding the trains.

The train station remained closed until the late morning on Thursday, September 3, when the Hungarian police finally allowed the refugees to board trains.

RELATED: Hungary PM tells refugees: Please don’t come


RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Refugees slept outside Budapest's Keleti train station after authorities refused to allow them to board trains bound for other European countries. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
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RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Thousands of refugees were stranded at the train station in Budapest. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
The refugees were eventually allowed inside the train station in the early hours of Tuesday morning, but, unlike local travellers and tourists, they were not allowed to take the trains bound for Germany. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
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Refugees remained stranded inside the train station throughout the day. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
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Police watched over increasingly frustrated refugees at Budapest's main train station. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Frustrated refugees began expressing their anger and irritation with the situation. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
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RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Protesting refugees said they were angry because they had bought train tickets but couldn't board the trains and had been waiting for five hours inside the train station without knowing whether they will be able to leave Budapest. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
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Refugees at the train station complained that they had been stranded for hours without food or water and not being allowed to leave the train station to use the bathrooms. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Confronted with the protests, the police decided to evacuate and shut down the train station, pushing out, without violence, all the refugees from the station. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Refugees continued protesting the entire afternoon and evening at the train station. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
RESTRICTED [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]
Refugees waited outside the station through the night and remained stranded there through Wednesday. On Thursday, the authorities decided to open the station, allowing refugees to board trains. [Lazar Simeonov/Al Jazeera]