German police registered a total of 609 attacks on asylum-seekers and refugees during the first half of 2019, according to the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. The newspaper cited an answer given by the German federal government in response to a question by the parliamentary group of the Left party.

The crimes ranged from verbal insult and harassment to arson and dangerous bodily harm.

Read more: How dangerous is the Identitarian Movement?

According to the report, there were 60 attacks on refugee shelters and 42 attacks on aid organizations or volunteers. 102 people were injured, including seven children. Authorities have designated all of them as “politically motivated right-wing crimes.”

The report stated that one in four attacks took place in the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds the country’s capital Berlin. Police recorded 160 offenses targeting refugees or asylum-seekers in the state.

There were 62 assaults in Baden-Wuerttemberg, 58 in Lower Saxony and 56 in Saxony.

Ulla Jelpke, the spokeswoman for domestic affairs for the Left party in the Bundestag, was quoted by the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung as saying that refugees and asylum-seekers are exposed to threats every day in Germany. “The state has a duty to protect these people.”

Right-wing attacks up

The report comes after German authorities registered 8,605 right-wing extremist offenses in the first half of 2019, according to the figures released by the Interior Ministry.

While the overall number of right-wing extremist crimes dropped by 0.3% in 2018, the number of violent crimes committed by known right-wing extremists rose by 3.2% (from 1,054 to 1,088), according to the report.

Read more: German ‘welcome culture’ still a new concept, study finds

Asylum and migration are topics that have dominated the German public and political agenda over the past several years since the country opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict and persecution.

sri/rt (afp, epd, kna)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-over-600-attacks-on-refugees-in-first-half-of-2019/a-50296504

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Ankara, which hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, controls parts of northern Syria where it says 350,000 Syrians have already returned. It is setting up a “safe zone” with the United States in the northeast where Erdogan said many more could be moved.

“We are saying we should form such a safe zone that we, as Turkey, can build towns here in lieu of the tent cities here. Let’s carry them to the safe zones there,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

“Give us logistical support and we can go build housing at 30 km (20 miles) depth in northern Syria. This way, we can provide them with humanitarian living conditions.”

“This either happens or otherwise we will have to open the gates,” Erdogan said. “Either you will provide support, or excuse us, but we are not going to carry this weight alone. We have not been able to get help from the international community, namely the European Union.”

Under a deal agreed between the EU and Turkey in March 2016, Ankara agreed to stem the flow of migrants into Europe in return for billions of euros in aid.

However, the number of migrant arrivals in neighboring Greece spiked last month. A week ago more than a dozen migrant boats carrying 600 people arrived, the first simultaneous arrival of its kind in three years.

“Our goal is for at least one million of our Syrian brothers to return to the safe zone we will form along our 450km border,” Erdogan said.

The post Turkey plans to return 1 million Syrians, warns of new migrant wave in Europe first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.