BUDAPEST (Sputnik) — The number of refugees crossing into Hungary from outside the European Union since the beginning of the year has reached 172,000, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Thursday.
"A total of 172,000 [refugees] entered the country so far," Kovacs told RIA Novosti.
He suggested that the number of arrivals was "growing exponentially."
"Since the beginning of the year until early July some 80,000 people arrived. Then, over the next two months — another 80,000," the official added.
Hungary has found itself at the epicenter of what is regarded to be the largest refugee crisis since World War II. A vast majority of refugees fleeing crisis-ridden homelands in the Middle East and North Africa travel through Hungarian territory in hopes of gaining asylum in Germany and other more affluent EU member states.
EU Settlement Quota Meaningless Without Stemming Refugee Flow
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday offered to distribute an additional 120,000 migrants across the Europe Union within two years, in addition to the 40,000 the commission planned for this spring.
"The first issue is to stop illegal migration. There is no sense in talking about quotas, no sense in talking about integrating these people."
The Hungarian state secretary for public diplomacy and relations derided Brussels for lacking an efficient strategy in addressing the issue of undocumented migration.
"They always want to take a so-called second and third step without addressing the first," Kovacs argued.
Budapest Has No Accurate Information About Refugee Numbers in Hungary
Hungarian authorities do not possess precise figures for refugee numbers currently in the country, Kovacs said.
"This is a tough question… We do not know how many people are, so to say, currently on the way — the way to the camps, or from camps to the border [with Austria], or between the camps."
According to Hungarian calculations, up to 4,500 people are in temporary police facilities on the border.
"The number is approximately twice higher in the migrant camps, where they are being sent from the police facilities…" Kovacs added.
"Many of the refugees, who have already begun the process of registering [for asylum],… do not reach the camps. They run. They know there are no border controls inside the Schengen zone, no inspection and customs. Although the absence of boundaries is there only for the citizens of Schengen countries and for those who have a visa, the refugees are abusing this opportunity," Kovacs said.
According to Kovacs, Hungarian authorities will no longer organize buses for refugees, as was done September 4, when thousands of refugees were taken from the Keleti railway station to the Austrian border.
"Back then we had the state of emergency. There was a very difficult situation on the railways and highways [along which the refugees were walking]… The state is not obliged to help undocumented migrants, so that they could get from the point A to the point B," Kovacs noted.
According to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, some 500,000 people have arrived in Europe since the beginning of 2015, many from Syria and Libya.
Earlier in the day, Hungarian police told RIA Novosti that 3,321 refugees, a record daily number, had crossed into the country in the previous 24 hours.
