This year, more than twice as many illegal immigrants have attempted to enter Hungary as last year, the Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister said on the public service television news channel M1 on Wednesday morning.

György Bakondi said while last year the Hungarian authorities detained 6,000 illegal migrants, this year to date they have detained more than 13,000. There is a significant increase equally on the Serbian, Romanian and Croatian border sections, he added.

He said there could be an extensive international people smuggling organisation behind migration, whose goal is to smuggle masses of illegal immigrants into Europe.

Once migrants reach Europe, their deportation is extremely costly; this is a complex and slow procedure, and therefore the number of those residing in Europe illegally is increasing continuously.

On Kossuth Radio’s programme ‘Good morning, Hungary’, the chief advisor also highlighted that the centres of the largest people smuggling networks are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is only possible to eliminate these criminal gangs if the authorities manage to “unravel” their networks, he added.

(MTI)