Refugee Roulette: Anti-migrant rally highlights backlash in Germany.
The rapid influx of refugees from conflict areas such as Syria has overwhelmed European countries, but how are the refugees coping with their new lives? The German government says they’re welcome, but what’s the reality?
“Sometimes when I’m in the supermarket or I’m walking in the street, people look at me in a bad way and say bad words in German”, Muhammad Ismail says. He’s been settled in Hoyerswerda in the former East Germany, a region that’s seen recent attacks on refugee housing by violent mobs of Neo-Nazis. “I have friends, they told me to take care, to be careful”, he says. At Neo-Nazi rallies in Dresden, there’s praise for Australia’s asylum policy of turning back the boats. “Instead of accepting them into Australia they send them back home”, Jens Baur from the far right NPD party tells a crowd outside a refugee camp. In spite of the hostility faced by many refugees arriving in Europe, returning home could lead to far worse circumstances. As Syrian refugee Abu Fahdi explains: “I left them so I could try to save them. There was absolutely no other way to save them except coming here”.