Germany in a state of SIEGE: Merkel was cheered when she opened the floodgates to migrants. Now, with gangs of men roaming the streets and young German women being told to cover up, the mood's changing
Germany in a state of SIEGE: Merkel was cheered when she opened the floodgates to migrants. Now, with gangs of men roaming the streets and young German women being told to cover up, the mood's changing
- Thousands of economic migrants are posing as refugees to reach Europe
- David Cameron said this week that Europe must said failed asylum claimants back to their countries
- Demands for Germany's 'open doors and windows' policy to be scrapped
- Women said rape and child abuse were rife in Giessen's refugee camp
By
Sue Reid In Giessen, Germany
Published: 23:27 GMT, 25 September 2015 | Updated: 00:29 GMT, 26 September 2015
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On the busy shopping street in Giessen, a German university town twinned with Winchester, migrant Atif Zahoor tucks into a chicken dish with his brother and cousin at the curry restaurant Chillie To Go.
They have left good jobs back in Karachi, Pakistan, and now want to be Europeans.
In late July the three slipped into Germany with their wives and children, using illegal documents. They live together in a five-bedroom house, rented for them by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, a 40-minute drive away from Giessen, which is home to the biggest migrants’ camp in the country.
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Migrants and refugees pictured waiting for a bus outside the Migrant Receiving Camp on the outskirts of the German city of Giessen. Social workers and women's groups warned that facilities were hopelessly inadequate and security was a problem for female residents
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Migrants and refugees queue at the compound outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs as they wait for their registration. But there are warnings that millions more newcomers should be expected in the current migrant crisis
We paid a trafficking agent for false visas to fly here to Germany,’ says 34-year-old Atif. ‘We claimed asylum and came to Giessen camp with other migrants. Three weeks ago, because we had families, they gave us a proper home.’
Atif is well-dressed and speaks perfect English. He used to be a transport manager at Karachi airport and is from a well-to-do family. Between mouthfuls of curry, he adds: ‘But there is violence between political gangs in Karachi. Lots of people are leaving for Europe. The trafficker decided that Germany was the place for us because it is welcoming refugees.’
There is violence between political gangs in Karachi. Lots of people are leaving for Europe.
This week, David Cameron said Europe must send failed asylum claimants back to their own countries, while European Council president Donald Tusk has warned that millions more migrants are on their way and ‘the policy of open doors and windows’ must be scrapped.
They are tough words, but it’s action that is needed. As Jens Spahn, a deputy finance minister in Chancellor Merkel’s government, said this week: ‘Not everyone can stay in Germany, or in Europe. If people are coming for poverty reasons... we have to send them back.’
Mrs Merkel’s offer last month to accept all refugees from war-ravaged Syria opened the floodgates. More than a million migrants are expected this year alone, the bulk of them far from genuine asylum seekers. There is now deepening disquiet in this Christian country, dotted with churches, that it is being overwhelmed by people of a different religion and culture.
- Refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan inside a tent shared by more than 60 men at the refugee registration center for the German state of Hesse in Giessen, 40km southwest of Frankfurt
- Yesterday, the Mail reported how social workers and women’s groups in Giessen wrote a letter to the local state parliament claiming that rape and child abuse were rife in the refugee camp. The allegations were corroborated by Atif over his curry. ‘The camp is dangerous,’ he agreed. ‘Men of different nationalities fight and women are attacked.’
Many women have felt the need to sleep in their clothes... they won’t go to the toilet at night because rapes and assaults have taken place on their way to, or from, there.
Letter written by social workers and women's groups in the Giessen camp
The letter says the camp, far from being a peaceful haven for those fleeing war, is a dangerous melting-pot, where there have been ‘numerous rapes and sexual assaults, and forced prostitution’.
There are even reports of children being raped and subjected to sexual assault, it adds.
‘Many women have felt the need to sleep in their clothes... they won’t go to the toilet at night because rapes and assaults have taken place on their way to, or from, there. Even in daylight, a walk through the camp is fraught with fear.’
Controversially, the letter suggests that in the migrants’ culture, women are viewed differently: ‘It is a fact that women and children are unprotected. This situation is opportune for those men who already regard women as their inferiors and treat unaccompanied women as “fair game”.’
Many migrant women have fled here to escape forced marriages or female genital mutilation, which are rife in some African and Middle Eastern countries. ‘They believe they have found safety in Germany,’ says the letter, ‘and realise it’s not the case.’
Locals in Giessen are appalled by the rape allegations. But many are also increasingly worried about the effect of the migrants — some 6,000 Syrians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Kurds, Eritreans and others are housed in the camp, which was expanded last year — on their everyday lives.
Some complain that the migrants have taken over the town, which is famous for its botanical gardens and dotted with pretty boutiques and flower shops. You cannot miss the new arrivals, wandering the streets in large groups.
At the Lidl supermarket a few hundred yards from the camp, a well-dressed German woman packing her shopping into a Mercedes saloon rolls her eyes at me as a group of Middle Eastern youths walk by. ‘What do we do?’ she asks. ‘It has happened now and it will never be the same again.’
Some of the tales being told in Germany may just be xenophobic scaremongering. But there is no doubt that the country is grappling with a major culture clash as migrants pour in at the rate of 100 an hour or more.
At other camps among the 2,000 that have sprung up in Germany, I hear various lurid complaints about the arrivals, 80 per cent of whom are Muslim, single and male.
At a former U.S. military base housing some 2,000 migrants in Bayernkaserne, on the outskirts of Munich, women’s rights groups say there is forced prostitution and rape every day. Men, women and children sleep next to each other in tents and, according to one social worker interviewed on local TV, the camp is ‘the biggest brothel in the city’ where the price for sex with a female migrant is €10
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