Alumnus William Carey Bateman III (’15) has been working in Budapest, Hungary, over the past few weeks, witnessing firsthand the refugee crisis in Europe. He recently described his experiences in a guest column for The Commercial Appeal.
Over the past few months, refugees fleeing their homelands of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern nations have captured the world’s attention for taking drastic measures (occasionally with fatal outcomes) to secure asylum in a number of central and western European countries, primarily Germany.
In his column, Bateman describes the outcomes of several trips he has made with a local church to the Keleti Train Station in Budapest and to the city’s “poverty-stricken District VIII to visit the refugees, deliver aid, and listen to their stories.”
“Through an interpreter, [a] mother told me the Taliban had beaten and killed her father and threatened her husband’s life. Though they initially sought refuge in Turkey, they found that agents of the Taliban were still able to pursue them there, so they ventured on to Hungary, with the ultimate goal of reaching Germany,” recounts Bateman.