About 3,000 Romanian stuck on the Hungarian borders managed to enter Romania

About 3,000 Romanians crossed the border with Hungary and entered Romania last night after the Hungarian authorities had established a humanitarian corridor to allow Romanians blocked on the Austrian-Hungarian border to return to Romania. Over 3,500 Romanians who returned from Western countries by bus or by car were stuck in the Nickelsdorf customs yesterday after Hungary had closed all its borders over coronavirus epidemic.

The car queues are stretching on tens of kilometers yesterday. There are not only Romanians in this situation, but also citizens from other countries.

Following pressures made by the Romanian side, Hungary decided to establish a humanitarian corridor to allow Romanians to cross Hungary, but only during March 17, 21:00hrs to March 18, 05:00hrs.

However, the waiting time to enter Romania is still extremely long , roughly 180 minutes, because of the procedures that have to be followed in case of all citizens who return from risk areas and enter Romania.

Romanians were able to enter Romania from Hungary on certain routes imposed by the Hungarian authorities through four border checkpoints: Nădlac1, Nădlac 2, Borș and Cenad.

Both Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Romanian FM Bogdan Aurescu urged European counterparts to set up humanitarian corridors to allow the repatriation of the Romanian citizens from Western countries.

President Iohannis had a discussion with the EU leaders through video conference, asking them to create humanitarian corridors to allow the repatriation of the Romanian citizens blocked abroad or on various borders.

“Romania’s President outline the difficult situation of some Romanian citizens whose labour contracts have been terminated due to the COVID-19 crisis and who cannot return to Romania because of the quarantine imposed in those countries or due to the existing deadlock on the borders of some member states,” reads a Presidency press release.