First months (summer of 2015)
Due to the civil war in Syria which broke out in 2011, more than half of the 22 million residents were forced to leave their home. Because of the strengthening of the Islamic State terrorist organization in Iraq and its spread in Syrian, millions of people fled from terror to neighboring countries. Since Turkey has been saturated with more than 2 million refugees by 2014, and the conditions have become unbearable in the refugee camps there, more and more people are moving European countries. First of all those who thought that in the foreseeable future the situation would not be settled in the regions they had to leave. Since most people from Syria and Iraq were in Germany and Sweden before the start of the refugee wave, these were the most target countries for the most refugees. Greece-Macedonia-Serbia-Hungary-Austria was one of the most used transit routes and so this became the so-called “West Balkan route”. By the summer of 2015, Hungary was used by thousands of refugees per day as a transit country. It seems that the large number of asylum seekers was unexpected by the authorities, because they did not know or through political pressure they did not want to handle the situation in a humane way. Due to significant through traffic, unstable conditions have emerged in the affected areas, such as at the East and West Railway Station in Budapest. What the government did not want to solve the civilians took their hands. To help the needy people spontaneously joined together: in a few weeks, thousands of Facebook groups were created, and on these online platforms the more effective organizing and coordination of helping work was started. One of these Facebook group was named Migration Aid.
By the end of August 2015, more than half a dozen Migration Aid groups were existed, with more than 10,000 members. These groups are set for a humanitarian solution to supply a critical target location (Migration Aid East, Migration Aid West, Migration Aid Debrecen, etc.).
In July 2015, more than 31,000 and in August more than 47,000 asylum seekers arrived in Hungary, nearly half of them are from Syria (12,5 thousand in July and more than 23,000 in August). The Migration Aid volunteers supply an average of 800 people per day in July 2015 at Keleti Railway Station and 300 people a day at the Western and Southern Railway Station. The same number in August was 2,000 per day at the East and 500 at the other two stations. Apart from the Budapest railway stations, volunteer groups were assisted in Debrecen, Cegléd, Győr and Szolnok. Nearly 500 volunteers worked at different locations. During the two months, we were donated and distributed 140,000 bottles of 0.5 liters of mineral water, 50,000 sandwiches, 90,000 muesli, 73,000 purity packages (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap), 8,000 pairs of shoes, 6,000 sleeping bags, 390 tents, nearly 30 tons of clothes.