A van capsized in Csongrád-Csanád County near Ásotthalom on the main road 55. The driver was a Russian citizen who forced 19 illegal migrants into the cargo hold, including three children. All illegal passengers suffered injuries, but a Syrian boy lost his life.
According to 444.hu, ten ambulance cars from two counties rushed to help the casualties. Six people suffered severe, while 12 minor injuries, including two other kids.
Prosecutors bring charges against people smuggler who caused fatal accident
Prosecutors have brought charges against a Moldovan man on suspicion of people smuggling and causing a fatal accident after he crashed his minibus into a ditch at Ásotthalom at dawn on Thursday. After midnight, the man picked up 19 illegal migrants claiming to be Syrian citizens with the intent of transporting them to Austria on the instructions of a client, Csongrád-Csanád County prosecutors said in a statement.
When police carried out a spot check on the outskirts of Ásotthalom, the suspect drove away at high speed and lost control of the car while taking a corner, crashing into a drainage ditch. One of the passengers died at the scene, while four suffered serious injuries. Fourteen sustained minor injuries. The suspect fled into the forest, and after a search of several hours, police took him into custody.
Hungary protecting Europe by helping Sahel
Europe would face ruin if migration from Africa’s Sahel region took off, a government official said in a newspaper interview. Referring to the unstable situation in Niger, Eduard László Mathé, the ministerial commissioner for government policy in sub-Sahara, told the weekly Mandiner that problems must be handled locally rather than giving in to “endless African migration”. The Hungarian government had been the first in Europe to recognise this.
Read about the only Hungarian national who escaped from Niger HERE.
The Sahel, Mathé added, served as the security frontier of Europe. Potentially, tens of millions of African migrants may head to Europe now. During its presidency of the European Union in 2024, Hungary will consistently stress the issues associated with the countries of the Sahel. This African region is inhabited by a mixed population of 90 million, consisting of both nomadic people and settlers. Countries with growing populations, the ministerial commissioner added, were highly vulnerable to climate change and food poverty.
Not long ago, a government delegation visited Chad and examined the possible outcomes of the worsening refugee crisis on the Chad-Sudan border, including a humanitarian crisis due to the Sudanese civil war. Mathé said that the problems Africa is facing at the moment could soon become the problems of the EU. Hungary, the state secretary added, has started to build strong relations with Niger and Chad, and it offered humanitarian relief in the hope of stabilising the region’s economies with a further view to protecting Europe. Mathé said Hungary, with its long-standing attention to the dangers inherent in North Africa, had been among the first to react to the coup in Niger, and its Western partners appreciated its engagement.