Refugee crisis: Germany says it could take 500,000 people a year

September 10th, 2015

Awake Goy

Around 1,000 people are camped out in the mushrooming tent city, which now has a school, hospital, canteen and sanitary facilities, all provided by an ad hoc alliance of social networks and NGOs.

Many of the travellers from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Afghanistan are traumatised.

“I fled from Aleppo after planes dropped barrel bombs around my home,” said Ziah Ramadan, 50. “Our building was destroyed and whole families were killed. There were rivers of blood in the streets. I had to walk on the the dead bodies of my neighbours.”

Two of Ziah’s children were injured in the bombing and she was desperately seeking medical assistance for a son with shrapnel injuries to his back and arm, she said. After two months of waiting, she also wanted her asylum application dealt with urgently.

Belgian officials say they are facing the country’s worst ever refugee crisis, with more than 4,600 people making asylum requests in August alone. But the authorities have limited the amount of asylum applications they can process to 250 a day, as the crisis has escalated.

A week ago, the Parc Maximilien camp only housed 150 people.

Ibrahim, a 22-years-old economics student from Baghdad with earphones dangling from his neck, said that he had arrived in the camp via Hungary and Austria, just two hours before.

“It was crazy in Hungary. For two days, we were running from the police in the forest,” he said. “They chased us with taser weapons, shouting ‘stop motherfuckers!’ The police beat you if they catch you. We were in a group of more than 46 people but only four of us got through. All the others were caught”

Ibrahim, a Sunni, said that he had left Baghgdad after Shia militias strafed his house with bullets and shot at him in the street. The attack was led by sectarian relatives of his girlfriend, he claimed.

Both Ibrahim and Ziah said they had been packed like cattle into refrigerated lorries en route to Europe, in transits during which they feared they might die. Ziah said that some travellers had perished on her journey.

“Most of these people are post-traumatic and experiencing paranoia and real difficulties,” said Eloise Francart, a camp coordinator. “Many were also injured in Hungary and Austria. Our medics tent is open 20 hours a day but we just can’t fit any more people in.”

Around the park, refugees and migrants are staging spontaneous demonstrations led by drummers that block the streets, in a bid to speed up their asylum applications.

The camp buzzes with life and donations from local residents but it has been targeted by local thieves and drenched with rain.

Even so, refugees rights groups say that last night, only 20-30 people checked into the government building, which has few showers and requires refugees to leave the building with their belongings every morning.

Source: theguardian.com

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