Hungary started to deprive of food some third-country nationals detained in the transit zones started in August 2018.

After 5 such cases successfully challenged by the HHC with obtaining interim measures from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Hungarian Immigration and Asylum Office (IAO) promised in August 2018 to discontinue this practice and provide food to all asylum-seekers in the transit zone. 

The Hungarian government is among the governments that have taken the toughest measures against refugees in Europe. Translating the Serbian border with barbed wire, the government has set up border camps for refugees.

These camps are called "transit camps". Press is not allowed to enter these camps, which are built of prefabricated houses and are strictly guarded.

Refugees entering the country cannot apply for asylum seeker because they accepted as committed a crime and are punished with imprisonment.

Marta Pardavi, co-chairman of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, said refugees were left hungry and that they applied to the European Court of human rights to force the authorities to give food to the refugees.

Between February 2019 and the publication of this update, the HHC had to request interim measures on a case-by-case basis in a total of 8 cases, pertaining to 13 starved people in the transit zones, bringing the total number of starvation cases since August 2018 to 13, and that of the affected individuals to 21.

"The deliberate starvation of detained persons is an unprecedented human rights violation in 21st-century Europe, which may amount to inhuman treatment and even to torture, under international human rights law," said HHC.

Statements of two members of the Hungarian Parliament who visited the Raszke transit refugee camp in early April to examine the dimensions of the misery in refugee camps also took place in the Hungarian press for a long time.

ILKHA