More than 1,500 people have been killed since Syrian government troops backed by Russia launched a ferocious attack on eastern Ghouta on February 18. Airstrikes have reduced much of the area near Damascus to ruins. According to the UN, there were an estimated 400,000 people trapped inside the besieged enclave without access to food and water when the offensive began.

The town of Douma, with its 200,000 residents, is now the only remaining Ghouta pocket still under rebel control. The full recapture of eastern Ghouta would mark a significant victory for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Referring to the month-long assault on the enclave, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded "this hell on earth" be stopped immediately.

According to activists and doctors in the region, several people have suffered symptoms consistent with those triggered by a chlorine gas attack and had to be treated in hospital. French President Emmanuel Macron has warned the Syrian regime that the use of chemical weapons will result in French retaliation, but the Syrian government claims it has never used this kind of munition.

A man and child look at the remains of a missile in Douma, the largest in eastern Ghouta. More than 300,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in 2011, when the government cracked down on protesters who were calling for the release of political prisoners and for President Assad to step down.

Activists say people in Douma have little food or water. Marten Mylius, the emergency relief coordinator for CARE in the Middle East, told DW that "after the tunnels were destroyed and the crossings closed, the price of basic foods skyrocketed. One kilo of rice now costs $4.50 (€3.66). A lot of people cannot afford that anymore. In other words, we are witnessing a rapid spread of malnutrition."

Aid access to eastern Ghouta is difficult because there is no direct route from neighboring countries. "In Idlib, for example...you can get in directly from the Turkish border. You can wait with supplies at the border and then bring in the convoy. It is much more difficult in eastern Ghouta," Mylius told DW.

"We don't see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders," Orban said in a recent interview with German daily Bild newspaper. The 54-year-old prime minister of Hungary added: "We believe that a large number of Muslims inevitably leads to parallel societies, because Christian and Muslim society will never unite." Multiculturalism, he said, "is only an illusion."

When asked by Bild whether it was fair for Germany to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants while Hungary accepted none, Orban responded: "The difference is, you wanted the migrants, and we didn't." Migration, he said, threatens the "sovereignty and cultural identity" of Hungary.

It was not the first time the Hungarian leader has framed migration as a problem for his country. In 2016, he said that Hungary "does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future." He added: "for us migration is not a solution but a problem ... not medicine but a poison, we don’t need it and won’t swallow it.”

Orban has repeatedly criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her decision to allow over a million migrants into Germany in the summer of 2015. Orban told Bild in early 2016: "If you take masses of non-registered immigrants from the Middle East into your country, you are importing terrorism, crime, anti-Semitism, and homophobia."

Orban has also repeatedly criticized the EU for trying to get member states to share refugees based on national quotas. In a 2015 interview with POLITICO, he suggested the bloc's leaders instead focus more on strengthening the EU's external border. In the same interview, he said: "Of course it’s not accepted, but the factual point is that all the terrorists are basically migrants."

Orban has found allies in other right-wing governments in eastern Europe such as Poland that also oppose the EU's refugee policies. In an interview with Spanish TV channel Intereconomia in 2015, Orban raised fears about integrating Muslim migrants in the EU when he said: "What sort of Europe do we want to have? Parallel societies? Muslim communities living together with the Christian community?"