In the chaos captured on video this month when a group of desperate migrants stormed out of a Hungarian holding camp, it was the actions of a camerawoman that garnered outrage.
Petra Laszlo was documenting the wave of migrants, many from the Middle East, sprinting from the holding camp in Hungary when she saw a man running with a child in his arms.
She tripped him, sending them tumbling to the ground. Moments later, the same camerawoman kicked other migrants, including a young girl, as they ran.
The man she tripped is Osama Abdul Mohsen, a Syrian who had moved his family to Turkey more than a year before and was now trying to get to Germany.
Laszlo was fired by her employer and apologized for her actions.
But Mohsen told CNN he doesn’t buy it.
“I tell her, be sure you Hungarian journalist that karma will get back to you, and God will not leave this be,” he said.
Mohsen, 52, said he was carrying his 7-year-old son, Zaid, in his arms when he was tripped.
He said the stampede from the Hungarian camp was triggered by the desperation the migrants inside felt. There were thousands of migrants packed into a small area, some with tents, but many others with no shelter, Mohsen said.
He and Zaid spent only one night in the camp, sleeping on the ground, but others had lived in those conditions for weeks, Mohsen said.
“This caused anxiety and weariness to many migrants,” Mohsen said. “The indifference of the Hungarian authorities triggered the situation, causing the migrants to storm the police defenses and walk their way to the nearby village, around 3 to 5 kilometers away.”
It was during that chaotic sprint out of the camp that Laszlo was seen tripping and kicking some of the fleeing migrants.
A backlash ensued after video of her attacks surfaced, prompting her employer, the Hungarian nationalist N1TV station, to fire her.
Laszlo wrote in a letter to the daily Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet that it was scary when the rush of migrants burst through a police cordon.
The letter describes how the ensuing panic scared her and made her think she would be attacked.
“I am very sorry for the incident, and as a mother I am especially sorry for the fact that fate pushed a child in my way. I did not see that at that moment. I started to panic and as I re-watch the film, it seems as it was not even me,” her letter states.
Back in Syria, Mohsen was a soccer coach at a sports club in Deir Ezzor.
“You and everyone can imagine what the situation is like in times of war,” he told CNN. “Deir Ezzor is in the midst of all this. It is impossible to live in, and those who have stayed really have absolutely nowhere to go, no shelter, no home, nothing. Luckily, we managed to leave and hopefully secure for our children a safer life.”
His family fled to Turkey, where he rented a home.
Then ISIS took over Deir Ezzor, and Mohsen knew there was no going back to his hometown.
“Their entry completely erased the thought of going back, even for a day to check on things and family. We have lost complete connection there; we can never go back as long as they remain there,” he said.
Mohsen said he understands that every country has the right to keep its land and citizens safe, but is at a loss at what he calls a lack of humanity.
“The world is witnessing a war. Killing and destruction that have never been in history before, no one can deny this reality,” Mohsen said. “But it is the right of every human to live a decent life. … Not a lavish life, just a life free of fear and violation of humanity.”
His son, he said, was injured in the fall after the camerawoman tripped him. To make matters worse, the boy got sick with a fever and was throwing up for days.
Mohsen said he plans to sue Laszlo and her former employer.