Last week everyone was left stunned by footage showing a Hungarian camerawoman tripping up a Syrian refugee as he ran past her with his young son in his arms.
Featured Image VIA
That woman has since been identified as Petra Laslo, who was immediately fired from the Hungarian TV station she worked for.
Images VIA
The man she tripped – Osama Abdel-Muhsen Alghadab, giving an interview alongside his seven year old son Zaid – has since spoken out from where they are currently stationed in Germany:
How can I forgive her?
There were thousands of people and they were holding us there until a coach came to take us to the border. It was a very small area with a huge crowd.
People started to lose patience and wanted to walk the 10km to the border — the police were standing there to stop people going.
It was chaotic, people started to push. I didn’t see where it came from, I didn’t know if it was a camerawoman or a policeman. I just felt myself falling to the ground.
We had a normal life until the war happened in our area. We stayed for a while and waited but after the big destruction we fled. We went to Turkey at the end of 2012.
Maybe he’ll be able to forgive her in the end though. After all, the whole situation put the spotlight firmly on Osama and his family which may end up helping them in the long run. Of course, there’s no excusing Petra Laslo’s behaviour in the first place and it’d be interesting to see if anyone can get a word with her to see what exactly was going through her brain at that moment.
On the other side of things, great to see people like Krishnan Guru-Murthy stopping his own live news report in order to assist refugees arriving at the Greek island of Lesbos.
