Video shows refugees fed 'like animals in pen' in Hungary camp

Women and children were caught in the chaos as hungry people frantically tried to grab bread flying through the air

BUDAPEST: Disturbing footage emerged Friday of the way migrants are being treated inside Hungary's main refugee camp on the border with Serbia, with images showing families fed "like animals in a pen".

The video, shot secretly by an Austrian volunteer who visited the flashpoint Roszke camp on Wednesday, shows some 150 people wildly scrambling for bags of sandwiches thrown at them by Hungarian police wearing helmets and hygiene masks in a fenced-in enclosure inside a big hall.

Women and children were caught in the chaotic scrum as hungry people frantically tried to catch the bread flying through the air.

Read: Even as refugees die, Hungarian PM tells Muslim refugees 'not to come’

Many migrants too far back in the crowd climbed onto the fence, waving and shouting to get the officers' attention.

"It was like animals being fed in a pen, like Guantanamo in Europe," said Klaus Kufner, a volunteer who was with the woman who recorded the images, referring to the notorious prison camp where the US is accused of torturing inmates.

He told AFP he and Michaela Spritzendorfer -- who filmed the scenes -- had driven together to Roszke to bring food, clothes and medication to help the thousands of refugees pouring over the border.

"It was inhumane and it really speaks for these people that they didn't fight over the food despite being clearly very hungry," said Spritzendorfer, the wife of a Vienna councillor with Austria's Green Party.

The footage, which was uploaded on YouTube late on Thursday and widely shared on social media networks, had more than 20,000 views by Friday morning.

Read: Hungarian TV photojournalist fired for kicking fleeing migrants

The UN's refugee agency criticised the dire conditions at the Roszke camp earlier this week, with Hungary's hardline stance against migrants also angering other EU countries.

Harsh laws which could see migrants jailed for crossing its borders are due to come into force on Tuesday.

Hungary's right-wing government in late August completed a razor-wire barrier along its 175-kilometre border with Serbia but it is not proving to be much of an obstacle for desperate people fleeing war in Syria and Iraq.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has however ordered the building of an additional four-metre high fence that he wants completed by the end of October.

Hungarian police launch probe

Hungarian police said on Friday they had launched an investigation after an online video showed a crowd of migrants clamouring for food in a hangar at a reception centre as police in surgical masks throw out packs of sandwiches.

In an e-mailed response to Reuters' questions, police said they had launched an "emergency enquiry" into the matter, describing it as a fact-finding investigation, without elaborating.

Government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs said the footage showed a detention centre where people spend only a few hours in an "optimal case" but can also remain there for up to two days in a procedure sanctioned by the European Union.

"I can see policemen who have been performing their duties for months, trying to take care of 23,000 migrants arriving continuously day by day while there is no co-operation whatsoever on their part," Kovacs said in an emailed response. "I can see they are trying to maintain order among those who are unable to line up for food," he said.