The co-ordinated caravan consists of activists from several European countries, including a group of Slovenian activists, who was among about 200 volunteers bringing aid to Botovo. The activists had brought clothes with them, and had plans to buy as much food and water for the refugees as needed. These things are what refugees need the most, explained activist Andrej Kurnik to MMC.

In Kurnik's words, the purpose of the European caravan for open borders is to show that “there is great solidarity with refugees in Europe, which is being manifested every day in fieldwork”. Volunteers are bringing emergency aid to the borders of the European Union.

According to Kurnik, the caravan also has “a political purpose, i.e. to warn about the criminality of the European border regimen and the regimen of migrations”. By insisting on closed borders, the European Union has “already brought great suffering and also numerous victims on European borders”.

Kurnik also warned against barbed wire and changes in Hungarian legislation, which allows the army “to shoot empty-handed, unarmed people who are running away from war, persecution or poverty”. Refugees are forced to cross the border in areas with minefields, emphasized Kurnik, “which is why the borders must open for those who need help”.

“Without these caravans, numerous volunteers and activists the situation would have been a lot worse in the humanitarian sense, but also in terms of politics. This is some sort of counterweight to the wave of incomprehension, fear and xenophobia that is poisoning the atmosphere and increasingly drifting away from reasonable dealing with the refugee issue,” added Kurnik.

B. V.; translated by K. Z.