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17 September 2015 Europe

By Nick ThorpeBBC News, Roszke, Hungarian border

Hungary closed its border with Serbia, prompting violent scenes involving police and migrants

"War on all fronts," thunders the headline in the conservative daily

Reuters

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Migrant clashes leave Hungary bitterly divided - BBC News http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34280460

1 of 12 18-Sep-15 3:20 PM

newspaper, Magyar Nemzet - a referenceto both the battles between desperaterefugees and Hungarian riot police, and toHungary's deepening diplomatic isolation.

Csaba Lukacs, the paper's leader writer,depicts a Hungary under attack from young,stone-throwing Muslim men: "Hungary'sborder was besieged by those who think theyhave the basic human right to march acrossEurope without documents."

Many in Hungary agree with thesesentiments.

In Roszke on the Serbian border, throughwhich tens of thousands of refugees have walked in recent months,little remains of the refugee camp constructed last weekend - just intime to help the last of the migrants.

A few white humanitarian tents, 34 portable toilets, and some peoplesifting through the rubbish for anything of value.

Some of the crops and greenhouses near the border have been badly damaged by theinflux of migrants

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A Hungarian man scavenges for clothes abandoned by fleeing refugees

Pepper farmer Zoltan Varga believes the police acted properly but questions the decisionto shut the border

But in the cornfields and sunflower fields nearby, there are knapsacks,clothes, children's toys and human excrement in every row. Manypatches where people slept or hid, or fled pursuing policemen, havebeen flattened.


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"I'm so glad this is all over," local farmer Zoltan Varga told me, as heinspected his red peppers.

Some of the crop was trampled underfoot, he said, as people ranthrough the fields. Some migrants slept in his greenhouses and causeddamage there.

He had watched Wednesday's police intervention at the Roszke roadcrossing on television.

"The police acted correctly," he said. But he also felt sorry for thefamilies with children. "If they had to come, why couldn't we lay ontrains to take them across the country?"

Hungarian police 'had little choice'

The clashes at the Roszke-Horgos border crossing dividepro-government and opposition newspapers.

Magyar Idok, a paper launched recently by the ruling Fidesz party,argues the "determination and aggressiveness" of the migrants leftHungarian police with little choice but to use water cannon.

Centre-right Magyar Nemzet says "the Hungarian border was besiegedby those who think that it's their basic human right to march throughoutEurope without papers."

But centre-left Nepszabadsag reacts sarcastically that "the strongHungarian nation can breathe freely. We no longer have anything toworry about".

And a commentator in centre-left Nepszava remarks: "We can now geton with our everyday Hungarian lives surrounded by barbed wire andshunned by migrants, neighbours, brothers, pals, close friends andinvestors."

The government has been anxiously watching public opinion polls, andcommissioning its own private ones, for any sign of an improvement intheir popularity, which sank drastically last October.

An important factor in its handling of the crisis has been the loss of amillion supporters, and a surge in the popularity of the radical nationalist


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Jobbik party, which shares Fidesz's anti-migrant rhetoric.

Mr Orban has been widely criticised outside Hungary but remains popular at home

The latest poll by the pro-government Szazadveg think tank gave themsome comfort, suggesting that the popularity of Fidesz grew from 43%in June to 48% in September.

But those figures are challenged by Professor Gabor Toka, a publicopinion specialist at the Central European University in Budapest.

"I haven't seen any evidence that would support the claim that thegovernment's handling of the refugee crisis has increased itspopularity," he told the BBC, pointing to the results of five separatepollsters since January.

From the opposition side, liberal weekly Magyar Narancs depictedPrime Minister Viktor Orban with a curly, Hitler-style moustache made ofcoils of barbed wire - prompting a small demonstration outside itsoffices by Orban loyalists.

The dispute has further polarised an already deeply-divided society.

Reuters


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