Many Muslims Volunteering To Help Refugees In An Unlikely Place

The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has been an ordeal marked by countless personal tragedies and turmoils that deserve rigorous international media coverage.

Just as deserving of coverage are the pockets of hope, where people throughout the world are stepping up to do what they can to provide assistance to refugees in need.

An example of the latter can be found in a story by Robert Samuels in The Washington Post Tuesday.

While Hungary has received extensive negative attention for how it has handled migrants attempting to enter the country, the Samuels offers a powerful portrait of how a small community of Muslims living in Hungary -- they represent less than 1 percent of the population -- are pushing back against the country’s opposition to the refugees and an associated uptick in anti-Muslim rhetoric. 

Samuels reports many Hungarian Muslims are donating food and medical supplies and providing translation help for refugees camping at the Keleti train station in Budapest.

“The Hungarians are good people, but the politics have gotten bad,” one volunteer, Josef Elhindy, told the Post. “We have to show them who we are.” 

Few other media outlets appear to have sought out Hungarians who are supportive of the refugees. Anadolu Agency, a Turkish state-run press agency, published a video earlier this month that showed a diverse crowd of Hungarians attending a pro-refugee rally in Budapest.