György Bakondi, Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, told Hungarian television channel M1 in its evening programme that border protection has been significantly strengthened, a number of police officers and soldiers have arrived and the range of equipment available to them has also been extended.
Mr. Bakondi said that at midnight on Tuesday, “in-depth” border defence would be introduced by the Hungarian authorities along the Serbian and Croatian border sections. Those migrants who are apprehended within eight kilometres of the border will be accompanied back to the nearest gate in the border fence and will be directed to the nearest transit zone.
Mr. Bakondi pointed out that the aim is to apprehend all of those who attempt to cross the border illegally.
He further added that, as with other forms of organised crime, the leaders of people smuggling rings do not approach the borders, but control events from afar. Although some one hundred and sixty people smugglers have been apprehended this year in Hungary – there is at least one such case a day – they are in fact only “deliverymen” or “couriers”, Mr. Bakondi said.