BERLIN’S swamped migrant processing centre was close to meltdown last night
as officials finally admitted: “We can’t cope.”
The German reputation for cool Teutonic efficiency was in ruins as the sheer
volume of refugees overwhelmed staff at the capital’s social security HQ.
Enough refugees to fill Wembley Stadium arrived in Berlin last year — and they
have kept on coming at a rate of 400 a day, despite the current sub-zero
temperatures.
And the warm welcome given by German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also feeling
the winter chill as public doubts deepen over her open-door policy towards
refugees.
READ MORE:
26,000
migrants have arrived in Europe in just 15 DAYS
Calais
Jungle camp migrants scrambling to pack up homes before bulldozers come in
Migrants
disguised as waiters being smuggled into Britain on ferries
Fury continues to grow over the New Year sex mob scandal when at
least 90 women were robbed or sexually assaulted by gangs of mainly
immigrant men in Cologne.
The migrant-led sexual assaults and robbery sprees spread to five more cities,
including Berlin.
In the town of Bornheim, male asylum seekers have now been banned from a
public swimming pool after women complained they were being sexually
harassed.
And a carnival parade in Rheinberg, which would have passed a migrant shelter,
has been cancelled over security fears.
Berlin was already facing a financial crisis, owing £45billion, when it was
ordered to take its share of asylum seekers and economic migrants.
But accommodation for new arrivals is fast running out and they face huge
delays to register for welfare handouts, healthcare and employment.
The 90,000 influx in Berlin is part of a 1.1million-strong throng which has
come to the West over the past year — and shows no sign of slowing.
Beleaguered Angela Merkel was warned the city faces a humanitarian crisis amid
signs that Germanic order is breaking down at Berlin’s LaGeSo reception
centre.
Backlogs are now so huge that heated tents have been set up to stop refugees
collapsing with hypothermia as they wait for days to be processed.
Many are forced to return to appointments over weeks and even months while
being shunted back and forth to packed, litter-strewn camps on the outskirts
of the city.
Bewildered and exhausted refugees suffering from war trauma and health
problems are left wandering between government blocks clutching official
documents that many are unable to read.
Security has been stepped up to manage the snaking queues inside tents beside
the LaGeSo block, amid growing safety concerns.
Two thirds of those registering for asylum are male, with the figure rising
to 90 per cent among under 18s. The majority are poorly educated and
unskilled.
A young refugee was abused and killed at the site in October when a sexual
predator took advantage of the queue chaos. The 32-year-old German
paedophile pounced on four-year-old Bosnian Mohamed Januzi as his parents
were registered. The boy was found strangled.
Claudia Roth, a vice-president of Germany’s parliament, wrote to Berlin’s
mayor, Michael Muller, warning that migrants were being “deprived of their
human dignity” on the site.
Franz Allert, boss of the LaGeSo HQ, resigned but the centre’s staff continue
to drown in the ever-quickening torrent of desperate refugees and economic
chancers.
Christiane Beckmann, of Moabit Hilft, a volunteer group providing migrants
with food, clothes and advice, fears the city is on the verge of a
humanitarian crisis.
Ms Beckmann, who has been working unpaid 17-hour shifts at the LaGeSo centre,
warned: “The authority here is close to collapse.
“All we can do is put out a fire here, a fire there. It has been clear for a
year that the numbers will rise.
“In fact, it’s been clear to everyone except the local government. We need to
build more shelters, not like barracks but ones integrated into areas of
life.
“It makes no sense to accommodate them in a two-class system where we have
refugees who may live in a house then those living in a tent. We are
reaching our limits.”
It is now feared that Chancellor Merkel, dubbed her nation’s “Mummy” after
ruling with maternal zeal for 11 years, has lost control of the migrant
crisis she helped spawn by throwing open the nation’s doors to refugees.
Time Magazine’s celebrated “Person of the Year” knows she would lose too much
face if she now sealed Germany’s borders to halt the tide.
But cities like Berlin simply cannot take much more.
And critics say Merkel’s humanitarian mission has become a vanity project
which threatens the entire fabric of German society — and the future of the
European Union itself.
The folly of her mammoth miscalculation was laid bare as shivering groups of
refugees began gathering before dawn outside the ugly concrete LaGeSo
building yesterday.
They are being shunted to and from queues for WEEKS before being
fingerprinted and processed, allowing them to seek work or claim benefits
and housing. Meanwhile, administrators are wrestling with the practical
issue of where to house them all if they continue to arrive at the same rate
in the months ahead.
Iraqi asylum seeker Ali Amar, 20, was more concerned with the biting cold and
the length of the queue as he smoked outside one of the tents packed with
queuing migrants.
He said: “The stupid people who attacked the women in Cologne will make it
harder for us all here. But the big problem for me is that I’ve been lining
up here for three weeks and still can’t get any money.
“I keep coming back to have my papers stamped but there are so many of us the
Germans can’t cope.
“I escaped from Islamic State in Diyala in Iraq and I feel safe here, but
these queues of people are crazy and it’s hard to get used to the cold.
“The Germans I have met have been incredibly kind but they are struggling.
There’s just too many us.”
Roula Khalid, 28, fled the Syrian capital of Damascus with her two-year-old
daughter Maria in October. She is still coming back regularly to join the
queues.
Roula said: “The Germans are good people and I’m safe here but the camp I’m
living in with hundreds of other refugees is very crowded, with rubbish
everywhere.
“We get food but things are starting to break down at the camp and they
don’t get repaired.
“There are no facilities to wash our clothes and more people arrive every
day.”
Migrant Assam Nasri, 28, was in the queues to register with refugees in Berlin
even though there is no war or strife in his native Tunisia.
He said: “I see lots of young men like me being welcomed to Germany and
thought I would join them.
“It’s true there’s no war in Tunisia but the political situation is not good
there, so here I am. I’ve been in Poland for a while but Germany is best for
me so I’ll take my chance with everyone else.”
After police played down reports that migrant gangs were involved in the
sex-pest sprees, Angela Merkel waited for six days before calling for action
to punish all culprits “regardless of race.”
But right-wingers seized their chance to blame the disgusting spectacle on a
culture clash sparked by uncontrolled immigration.
Figures released last week show that 1.09million asylum seekers arrived in
Germany last year — and more are coming at the same rate.
Minister Ole Schroeder said: “We had an average influx of 3,200 refugees per
day and the numbers are not declining in recent days. Our problem in Europe
is that we do not have functioning border controls.”
Meanwhile, as yet more migrants clamber off packed buses to join the winding
queues, the harassed volunteers are struggling to cope.
One student worker said: “We’re doing all we can to help them but there are so
many we are being stretched to our limits, and more and more arrive every
day.
“This is a mess which even Germany can’t deal with.”
Thugs target Muslims
NEO-NAZI thugs launched an anti-Muslim rampage in the German city of Leipzig
as tensions continued to boil over the migrant crisis.
Mayor Burkhard Jung blasted the “naked violence” and compared it to the dark
days of the anti-Semitic Kristallnacht attacks in 1938.
Muslim-run businesses were destroyed, cars set ablaze and shop windows smashed
by around 250 hooligans on Monday, days after more anti-migrant attacks in
Cologne.
The far Right gangs were from the local branch of the Pegida anti-migrant,
anti-EU faction attacking Angela Merkel’s open-door policy.
Racist hooligans peeled off from a largely peaceful anti-refugee march to
terrorise locals.
Placards waved at the demo included one declaring “Rapefugees Not Welcome”.
Another said: “Merkel – take your Muslims with you and get lost.”
A bus carrying pro-asylum demonstrators was attacked in scenes which
highlighted the tensions following the New Year sex mob scandal.
Police, criticised for their slow response to mob assaults in six German
cities, identified and arrested 211 people within hours.
A police spokesman said: “This was a serious breach of the peace.”
Nazis murdered 91 Jews and burned a synagogue in the Kristallnacht attacks –
known in English as The Night Of The Broken Glass.