BACK IN THE AUTUMN OF 2015 I was a frequent visitor to Keleti station in Budapest. I was living in the Hungarian capital and working as a foreign correspondent. The grand, ochre Austro-Hungarian building was my gateway to many reporting adventures, its trains rolling south to the Balkans or east to Ukraine. But this time the station itself was the story. Budapest was the epicentre of the international migration crisis. Keleti and its surrounds had become a surreal, inner-city refugee camp.
Each morning crowds of commuters picked a path through police and hundreds of camped-out migrants. I remember watching a middle-aged man and his young daughter sleeping on cardboard, his arm resting protectively on her shoulders.
I was moved by the stories I heard, of families fleeing war and destruction.…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2023