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In 1992 Hungary, a country of 10 million, had an estimated 780,000 refugees from former Yugoslavia. The UNHCR office in Budapest dealt only with non-European refugees. A limited number of refugees were aided by a few small organizations, but the majority of the war victims became the responsibility of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior.
Nagyatad had 2,800 refugees in the summer of 1992. Authorities spoke Hungarian and refugees spoke Serbo-Croatian. Ethnic Hungarian refugees from northern Serbia were employed as translators. I volunteered as an interpreter between the Hungarian authorities and the humanitarian organizations, journalists, and officials who were visiting the camp daily during late 1992, by which time the population of the camp was approximately 90% Bosnian, and 10% a mixture of ethnic Hungarians, Albanians, and Croatians. Nagyatad refugee camp is an army base 1 kilometer outside a town of 10,000 people. The refugees were provided with heat, food, and basic medical care. As a temporary facility it was sufficient. The refugees and authorities believed the war would end if they waited awhile, and the refugees would go home. However, as time went on, it became clear that the story was likely to be a bit longer and that's when problems arose.
For Hungary, the idea of "social services/work" was quite new. Tension and conflict among the refugees was seen as a threat to authority rather than an understandable reaction of people who suffered in a violent ongoing tragedy. When inevitable conflicts arose, authorities responded with force, increasing the controls on the refugees. Barbed wire fences were put up, more uniformed police officers, armed with machine guns and watchdogs, were placed in the camp. Only 200 people received permits to leave the facility each day.
In response to the lack of social workers in Nagyatad, I developed a volunteer program to attempt to provide refugees with social support. After visiting organizations and refugee camps in Croatia, I applied for and received funding from the International Rescue Committee, hired volunteers, and set up a program in the camp, initially with the "blessing" of the authorities. We visited the refugees in their rooms and listened them, offering support however we could. We taught English, built a Serbo-Croatian library, had music, theater, arts, and crafts projects, sports...