A youth counselling center built in part from funds contributed by the Hungarian government has been inaugurated in Ethiopia.
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said in Addis Ababa on Tuesday that Hungary contributed 160 million forints (EUR 429,000) to the construction of the center that will enable young people in Ethiopia to stay in and return to their homeland. The minister underscored the importance of supporting local communities so that they can remain in or return to “their homeland of hundreds of years or more”. “Our basic principle is that help should be taken where it is needed rather than bringing problems where there aren’t any yet,” Minister Szijjártó said. Europe has been facing strong migration pressure in the recent period, which poses serious security challenges to migrants’ countries of origin, transit countries and their destination countries, he said. Migration should be prevented rather than encouraged, he said and called for creating the circumstances that will enable people to remain in their homeland. This is what Hungary is doing in some fifty countries worldwide, most of them in Africa, Minister Szijjártó said, adding that Hungary was prepared to keep financing such projects in the future, too. As a country with one thousand years of Christian statehood, Hungary feels responsibility for all Christians, Minister Szijjártó said, adding that Christianity was the most persecuted religion in the world today. He said it was frustrating that this issue was not getting the attention it needed, while Muslim countries were putting significant emphasis on fighting Islamophobia and supporting Muslim communities. This, he added, raised the question as to why the governments of Christian countries “are not brave enough” to display a similarly firm stance, saying that many took a “hypocritical and unreasonable” position on the issue.