- 28 Sep 2023 21:38
#15288700
Germany is now overrun with migrants and the capital Berlin has run out of shelter space for them.
There are 10,000 asylum seekers trying to go to Berlin, and an additional 11,000 Ukrainian refugees this year who fled Russia's war. Berlin only has about enough space for 1,000, but will soon be converting a hangar at an abandoned airport into an emergency shelter. The government will also be renting out hostels in the capital for the migrants. (This might mean there will not be enough room for young tourists trying to find a place to sleep for cheap)
Another problem is there are also not enough places in kindergartens and schools.
The lack of space and money for migrants and Ukrainian refugees isn't unique to Berlin. It's a problem across Germany, where local and state officials have been demanding more funds from the federal government without success.
Germany has already taken in more than 1 million Ukrainians since the outbreak of the war in 2022.
While Germans welcomed asylum seekers with flowers, chocolates and toys when they first arrived in 2015, and many opened their homes to house Ukrainians in 2022, the attitude toward new arrivals has very much begun to change since then.
"After two years of the [COVID-19] crisis, then the Ukraine war with its increasing prices for basically everything -- heating, gas, also food -- it's sometimes pretty tough to convince people that they have to share places and capacities with people who just arrived."
Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party now polls in second place nationally with around 21%, far above the 10.3% it won during the last federal election in 2021, indicating an increasing percentage of the German population do not want the country to take any more migrants.
In June, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended plans to stop migrants from entering the EU altogether until their chances of getting asylum have been reviewed, arguing that the EU's existing arrangements on sharing the burden of asylum seekers among the different European countries is 'completely dysfunctional.'
Shelters for migrants fill up across Germany as attitudes toward them harden, Kirsten Grieshaber, LA Times, September 28, 2023
There are 10,000 asylum seekers trying to go to Berlin, and an additional 11,000 Ukrainian refugees this year who fled Russia's war. Berlin only has about enough space for 1,000, but will soon be converting a hangar at an abandoned airport into an emergency shelter. The government will also be renting out hostels in the capital for the migrants. (This might mean there will not be enough room for young tourists trying to find a place to sleep for cheap)
Another problem is there are also not enough places in kindergartens and schools.
The lack of space and money for migrants and Ukrainian refugees isn't unique to Berlin. It's a problem across Germany, where local and state officials have been demanding more funds from the federal government without success.
Germany has already taken in more than 1 million Ukrainians since the outbreak of the war in 2022.
While Germans welcomed asylum seekers with flowers, chocolates and toys when they first arrived in 2015, and many opened their homes to house Ukrainians in 2022, the attitude toward new arrivals has very much begun to change since then.
"After two years of the [COVID-19] crisis, then the Ukraine war with its increasing prices for basically everything -- heating, gas, also food -- it's sometimes pretty tough to convince people that they have to share places and capacities with people who just arrived."
Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party now polls in second place nationally with around 21%, far above the 10.3% it won during the last federal election in 2021, indicating an increasing percentage of the German population do not want the country to take any more migrants.
In June, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended plans to stop migrants from entering the EU altogether until their chances of getting asylum have been reviewed, arguing that the EU's existing arrangements on sharing the burden of asylum seekers among the different European countries is 'completely dysfunctional.'
Shelters for migrants fill up across Germany as attitudes toward them harden, Kirsten Grieshaber, LA Times, September 28, 2023