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Video shows TV camerawoman tripping, kicking migrants fleeing Hungary

Posted at 11:08 AM, Sep 09, 2015
and last updated 2015-09-09 11:11:06-04

HUNGARY — The video defies explanation. A Hungarian camerawoman, documenting the wave of desperate migrants sprinting from a holding camp, sees a man running with child in his arms. So she trips him.

The man, carrying all his belongings with him, falls on top of the boy as they tumble to the ground. He screams in disbelief.

Moments later, the same camerawoman kicks other migrants as they run, including a young girl in the leg.

The videographer, who worked for the Hungarian nationalist N1TV station, has been fired, Editor in Chief Szabolcs Kisberk said.

“The camera operator behavior was completely unacceptable,” N1TV said in a statement.

The station did not identify the camerawoman, but thousands took to a Facebook “shame wall” to criticize her acts.

She was one of the videographers filming the flood of migrants trying to get through Hungary and into Austria and Germany. The migrants include many refugees trying to escape the carnage brought on by terrorists and war in their homelands.

After crossing from Serbia into Hungary with only the belongings they could carry, the migrants were stuck for days at a holding camp in southern Hungary. Many complained about uncomfortable or inhumane conditions in the camp.

After breaking through the holding camp’s police line, they scrambled across a field walked and hiked about 4 miles — many dropping their possessions on the ground.

Two children from one family lost the shoes they were wearing. They walked over a train track and rocks barefoot for miles, hoping to reach a country more welcoming of refugees.

Hungary, a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention aimed at protecting refugees, has come under criticism for its handling of migrants and for erecting a razor-wire fence to stymie the flow.

But the Hungarian government has said it is just trying to enforce European Union rules on the movement of migrants without proper documentation.