“Love is everywhere,” the Hungarian photographer has said of the couple he captured kissing amid the crowded debris of a makeshift refugee camp.
Zsíros István came across the unknown lovers in Budapest’s main train station Keleti on 30 August: “It was early morning at half past eight. It was very peaceful.”
Around 2,500 men, women and children were camped in the international station – many in worsening conditions – but early in the morning Mr István remembers a peaceful scene.
He told The Independent taking the photograph was a “lucky moment” as he saw the gentle pair among the sleeping families and waking men.
Mr István, a 30-year-old former IT worker from Aszód outside Budapest, only recently took up photography. “I saw pictures from the media and I would like to see how they [refugees] live.
“I was curious. I would like to find the lighter side of this situation because it is so sad.”
His image of the couple, taken during a 20 minute trip to the station, went viral when he posted it to a Facebook competition group.
“I think everyone has happy moments in this refugee camp. Everybody is very sad and frustrating but love is everywhere, I think.”
He admits he doesn’t know who the couple were, or what has become of them, but hopes “everything will be fine and that everyone will be happy, even if they end up in Germany or wherever.”
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Mr István’s comments come in sharp contrast to the actions of his government.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban angered fellow European Union leaders earlier this week when he confirmed Hungary would not back a plan to equally redistribute 120,000 refugees.
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The right-wing leader has ordered the construction of a 110 mile border fence, topped with barbed wire and guarded by helmeted riot police, to hold back refugees.
The hasty completion of the fence – in a marked departure from previous examples of governmental inefficiency – has been compared by Romania’s leader to "Europe in the 1930s."
Prime Minister Victor Ponta told Reuters: “And did we solve the refugee problem with this? No, we didn't.”
