Migrants


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I did history at uni, and had to have Mein Kampf, Das Kapital and the Little Red Book on my bookshelf for one course. Made for some interesting conversations! The main thing we learnt was that genocidal maniacs write really, really, REALLY dull books. The German copyright for Mein Kampf belongs to the Bavarian government, and they have permitted a reprint under very severe conditions. You can buy it freely in most of the rest of the world, where its out of copyright, including through Amazon.

Please don't.

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Story cut and pasted from today's Times.

Migrant rape arrests brings calls to shut European frontiers

The note

There were growing calls to tighten European borders last night after four young Syrians were arrested over a double rape in Germany on New Year’s Eve and 22 suspects of mob violence in Cologne were confirmed as being asylum seekers.

The leaders of Slovakia and Hungary demanded tougher border controls for the Schengen zone of 28 European nations, amid a rising backlash as allegations were made across the continent of attacks by migrants..

inline_c3e93dbc-b6_1041128a.jpg In Cologne, where police recorded 121 complaints from women of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve, including two rapes, the embattled police chief was suspended after claims that he sought to cover up the extent of the violence and the involvement of migrants.

The rape arrests were made in Weil am Rhein, a border town in southern Germany, where a Syrian man aged 21, his brother, 15, and two boys aged 14 allegedly attacked girls aged 14 and 15.

Feelings were running high in Germany, where Angela Merkel has called for tougher laws to deport criminal asylum seekers but is blamed by many for encouraging too many migrants after 1.1 million arrived in the country last year.

Bild newspaper published a handwritten note seized from an immigrant arrested in Cologne on Thursday night in connection with the violence. It showed phrases such as “I kill you”, “big tits” and “I want to f*** you” translated from Arabic into crude German.

In Dusseldorf, near Cologne, a vigilante group formed to patrol the streets received more than 8,000 endorsements on Facebook after promising to “make our streets safer for our women”.

Several hundred women protested on the streets of Cologne today, carrying signs saying “No violence against women” and “No means no! It’s the law! Stay off us”.

The made as much noise as they could, blowing whistles and banging pots, to reflect their outrage at the spate of attacks.

Martina Schumeckers, 57, who organised the protest, said: “We want our safety back. We are against all violence against women. I am standing here for all mothers, daughters, granddaughters, grandmothers, for them all to be able to move around safely especially in our Cologne.”

A week after chaotic scenes outside Cologne railway station, Thomas de Maizière, the interior minister, said that police had identified 32 suspects, most accused of theft and causing bodily harm, 22 of whom were asylum seekers. The 32 comprised nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians and four Syrians. Three German citizens, an Iraqi, a Serb and a US citizen were also identified regarding the complaints about sexual offences.

“We must do everything to prevent such incidents from happening again,” Mr de Maizière said. He pledged “more CCTV cameras in places where many people gather, heightened police presence on the streets and harsher penalties”.

Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said: “We need more police, a better-equipped judiciary and tougher laws, among other things, to more quickly expel criminal foreigners.”

Under existing laws, asylum seekers are sent back to their countries of origin only if they have been sentenced to jail terms of at least three years and if their lives are not at risk in their native country. There is a backlog in carrying out deportations.

“Citizens expect that those without a right to stay really do leave the country,” Mr Kauder said.

In Finland yesterday, police reported that there had been an unusually high level of sexual harassment in Helsinki on New Year’s Eve. “There has not been this kind of harassment on previous New Year’s Eves. This is a completely new phenomenon in Helsinki,” Ilkka Koskimaki, the deputy police chief, said.

Security guards hired to patrol the Finnish capital on New Year’s Eve told police that there had been “widespread sexual harassment” at a central square where 20,000 people had gathered.

Three sexual assaults allegedly took place at Helsinki’s central railway station, where about a thousand mostly Iraqi asylum seekers had converged.

The Finnish government yesterday condemned a trend in recent months of volunteer street patrols linked to neo-Nazi groups that have emerged in several towns claiming to protect residents from “Islamic intruders”.

“There are extremist features to carrying out street patrols. It does not increase security,” Petteri Orpo, the Finnish interior minister, said.

Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, called for an emergency EU summit on the New Year’s Eve violence, and for a strengthening of the EU border force. The summit request was swiftly dismissed in Brussels.

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, said that the flow of migrants entering the EU should now be stopped. He told Hungarian radio that ending the migrant influx would be “the decisive issue of 2016”, and called for the construction of a “European defence line” on Greece’s northern borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Edited by babychunder
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Sex mob sparks revolt against Mama Merkel

A New Year’s Eve rampage by migrants who denounced German women as ‘sluts and whores’ has plunged the chancellor into a toxic debate about sexism, racism and whether it should slam the door on huge numbers of asylum seekers

Tony Allen-Mills, Cologne
Published: 10 January 2016
Anti-immigration protesters rally in Cologne yesterday following a wave of sex assaultsAnti-immigration protesters rally in Cologne yesterday following a wave of sex assaults (Juergen Schwarz)

German police fired water cannon close to Cologne’s gothic cathedral last night in an attempt to prevent clashes between rival groups of left and right-wing demonstrators who had gathered for radically contrasting reasons to protest about the outbreak of sexual violence that had scarred New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Armed police, accompanied by armoured water carriers, made four arrests after firecrackers and bottles were thrown in the squares and alleys around the cathedral and main railway station, where dozens of young women were chased and molested as they had tried to celebrate the new year.

Around 1,700 rightwingers led by Pegida, the anti-Islamisation group, were held near the station as they chanted their demand for the ousting of Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door refugee policies saw 1.1m migrants arrive in Germany last year.

Some held banners in English saying “Rapefugees not welcome”, a reference to widespread complaints that gangs of north African and other immigrant youths had gone on a rampage of groping and other sexual harassment.

Merkel responded yesterday by proposing a sharp revision of asylum laws to speed up the deportation of migrants who break German laws. Under the current system, only offenders who are sentenced to longer than three years’ imprisonment are liable for deportation.

A counter-demonstration by 1,300 anti-Nazi protesters angered by Pegida’s attempt to make political capital out of assaulted women was blocked several hundred yards away. “It’s unacceptable that Pegida exploits horrible sexual violence to spread its racist bullshit,” said Emily Michels, 28, who addressed the crowd with a megaphone.

Ironically, activists on both sides agreed that the heavy police presence had been absent when it had been most needed on New Year’s Eve. “The police come after us but they don’t dare touch the Syrians,” complained one young man carrying a “Merkel must go” placard.

Police confirmed that 1,700 officers had been deployed, compared with 140 on New Year’s Eve. Minor clashes were reported but police appeared to be in control.

What may prove a turning point for Germany’s willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) had begun harmlessly enough at around 10pm on the last day of 2015, as crowds gathered in a series of interlocking squares rising from the banks of the Rhine up to the cathedral.

“I don’t know what was worst that night,” said Ariane Pfannstiel, one of hundreds of young women who had turned out to watch fireworks and toast the new year. “Was it the absence of police or their impotence? Or the fact that I had never seen so many aggressive men face to face?”

Emerging from the underground station “my first impression was simply dread”, Pfannstiel wrote in a post to a Cologne community page. “It was loud, hostile and contemptuous of women. We fled from the square but inside the station was no better. We were denounced as sluts and whores, harassed and persecuted.”

As women scattered across the city centre, many accompanied by boyfriends or husbands as they sought refuge, they found themselves surrounded by groups of leering men.

“There were boys and old men, they looked like fathers and sons,” said Mirjam, a 23-year-old shop assistant. “My boyfriend was standing right beside me, trying to push them away, but it was incredible — they were just taking it in turns to grab at my breasts. I thought if I let go of my friend’s hand they would drag me away.”

A young woman called Sabine told German radio she had scratch marks between her thighs where a man had groped under her skirt. Other women reported their purses had been snatched and some told police they had seen gang leaders directing the assaults.

Cologne police said yesterday that the number of cases filed involving violence during the festivities had reached 379 and that migrants made up the majority of suspects. Two were for claims of rape.

It was a night of unconscionable breakdown in Germany’s much-cherished standards of stability, civility and political rectitude. It has plunged “Mama Merkel” into a toxic debate about sexism, racism and what one prominent politician described as the “social romanticism” of its well-meaning immigration policies.

“There are some who think our immigrant policy is a [do-gooders’] contest for the Mother Teresa award,” said Heinz Buschkowsky, who as former mayor of the Berlin district of Neukölln presided over one of Germany’s most culturally mixed areas. “It is not. It is hard work.”

The evidence of a seemingly unbridgeable gap in immigrant attitudes towards women has emboldened right-wing forces demanding an end to open-door policies.

The fallout from what German media has dubbed the “sex-mob scandal” is also spreading, from the beleaguered borders of Greece, Italy and Macedonia through the refugee camps of Calais and Dunkirk to Downing Street where Merkel’s response to a night of shame may have a profound impact on David Cameron’s referendum on European Union membership.

As the rightwingers gathered in Cologne yesterday there seemed no end to the flow of stories from horrified young women who had gone out to watch new year fireworks and to party and ended up fleeing from groups of men calling them “bitch” or “prostitute”. The police report summed up the evening: “Women literally had to run a gauntlet through a mass of drunken men . . . we were unable to respond to all the offences, there were just too many.”

Hours after the trouble started Selina, 26, and her friend, Sara, had arrived at the railway station after seeing in the new year at a pub. They intended to catch a train home to Koblenz, but the man behind the ticket counter looked at them in astonishment. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Don’t you know what’s happening?”

Within minutes they were approached by a group of men who followed them, grabbing at their bodies. “The police saw what was happening but none of them came to help us,” said Selina. They eventually found a taxi rank and a group of men who offered to protect them.

Other men also tried to intervene, among them Ivan Jurcevic, a kick-boxing Croatian actor who was working at a nearby hotel. “They attacked the hotel guests, they spat at the guests and spat at the police,” said Jurcevic.

He said he had always regarded stories about immigrants insulting women as “right-wing propaganda . . . but this was real”. Attacked by several men, he launched himself into the fray and claimed to have helped several women to safety.

The assaults were shocking enough, yet for many Germans the response of the Cologne police was the ultimate insult to the victims. Officers somehow reported the following morning that the celebrations had passed off “quite peacefully”.

It later emerged from a leaked memo that the police had found themselves hopelessly unprepared. Yet the real problem for Merkel lies in reports that an unnamed officer had barred references to the assailants’ immigrant status for fear of stoking political tensions.

Repeated claims that officials have been covering up immigrant misbehaviour for fear of undermining Merkel’s policies have returned to haunt the chancellor.

“Ordinary citizens are being played for fools,” claimed Andre Schulz, the leader of a German police union.

New Year’s Eve assaults on women have also now been confirmed in Hamburg, Stuttgart and Bielefeld, while in a small town in the state of Baden-Württemberg two teenage girls were allegedly raped by four Syrian refugees.

The first head to roll was that of Wolfgang Albers, Cologne’s police chief; he has been placed on leave and appears to be on his way to enforced retirement. The city’s mayor, Henriette Reker, has also been condemned for suggesting that women needed a new “code of conduct” that should include keeping men “at arm’s length” when out in public.

Many Germans took to social media to lambast Reker for appearing to blame women for inciting the attacks. “It’s not German women who need to change their behaviour,” wrote one Facebook user. “It’s politicians who are terrified of upsetting immigrants.”

One Muslim owner of a martial arts gym apologised for the behaviour of “uneducated” immigrants and offered free self-defence classes to women. Others set up vigilante-style groups that proposed to patrol city streets to protect women.

The Swiss performance artist Milo Moire stages a nude protest in Cologne. The sign says, ‘Respect us! We are not fair game even if we’re naked’The Swiss performance artist Milo Moire stages a nude protest in Cologne. The sign says, ‘Respect us! We are not fair game even if we’re naked’ (rex)

The suggestion that ill-educated immigrant youths were being exploited by more sophisticated gangs — whether for fun or profit — was bolstered by the discovery that some of the men were carrying scraps of paper with phrases translated from Arabic into German. These included “big breasts” and “I want to f***”.

On Thursday visitors to Cologne’s cathedral were startled by the appearance outside of Milo Moire, a German performance artist, who shed her clothes and held up a banner that read: “We are not fair game even when we are naked.”

The gap between nude feminists and Muslim immigrants could scarcely be wider and even Merkel’s most ardent supporters were finding it hard to defend the generosity towards refugees that only a few months ago had been a source of intense German pride.

“The impression that sexual violence is being imported [by immigrants] is mistaken,” said Claudia Roth, vice-president of the Bundestag.

The Munich Oktoberfest and Cologne’s annual carnival — due to take place next month — began spawning complaints of sexual harassment long before the current migrants arrived and Roth warned of a “brutalisation” of the immigration debate.

Reker, the mayor, had been campaigning last October when she was stabbed by an unemployed German handyman infuriated by her work for the city’s refugee support service. She was still in hospital when she won the election. Last week she tried to reassure citizens ahead of the carnival that there would be no repeat of the New Year’s Eve violence.

It scarcely helps that, according to carnival tradition, revellers are entitled to demand a kiss from strangers. In Der Spiegel yesterday, Reker said efforts would be made to instruct immigrants about proper kissing behaviour.

Merkel’s emphasis on humanitarian obligation has been seen in some circles as an assuaging of German guilt for its 20th-century misdeeds, but a younger generation of Germans is losing patience with the argument that “we have a debt to pay”, as Pfannstiel put it. “It’s ridiculous,” she said. “They have come here and attacked us.”

There was also disgust at the Cologne police report that described one immigrant’s response to the policeman arresting him: “I’m Syrian, you have to treat me nicely, Frau Merkel invited me.”

The chancellor now faces an uphill battle as she attempts to rally public support for Germany’s humanitarian goals. On Friday, she declared that “the most important thing is that the facts about what happened are spoken about openly and bluntly. Terrible things happened and we must respond to them.” Yet the more facts Germany learns about its sex-mob scandal, the less support there is likely to be for men who grope its women.

Whatever conclusion Germany reaches about immigrant quotas, deportations or teaching men not to put their hands up women’s skirts, the real test of the chancellor’s immigration policies will come in places such as Gevgelija, in Macedonia, where the border with Greece was being patrolled last week by burly Hungarian guards drafted in to help stem the flow of migrants. They are due to be joined by contingents from Croatia, Slovenia, Poland and other countries.

One of the Hungarian policemen quietly admitted last week: “We stopped them in Hungary, but here there is a lot of work. Greece just lets people in.”

His words were echoed by Viktor Orban, Hungary’s hardline prime minister, who warned: “Securing the borders of Europe [in Greece] . . . has failed.”

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, was among European leaders warning that the current influx might have to drop “very considerably”.

Merkel’s proposals to streamline deportation procedures may help to calm her domestic critics but she still faces the broader question of how long Germany can continue to admit unlimited numbers of refugees, including a high proportion of young unattached men, however needy they seem.

European attempts to enlist Turkey’s help in stamping out people smuggling — in return for hefty injections of aid — have so far had little effect.

Orban proposes a second line of defence along the Macedonian and Bulgarian borders, but even that may prove inadequate given the sheer volume of migrants.

“There is an enormous reservoir of refugees wanting to reach Europe,” said Elizabeth Collett of the Migration Policy Institute, a leading think tank.

“Their number will only increase given the turmoil in the Middle East.”

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Mercal only has herself to blame. Inviting them all to Germany without thinking they would come in hoards & from a different culture where woman are possessions with no rights.

Far right could get a hold in Germany. Doesn't bear thinking about.

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Some of those migrants have a world view very different to ours. Like, women are second class citizens, state law should be replaced with religious law (Sharia) and unbelievers don't count for anything. Any western democracy which lets in large numbers of culturally incompatible people is headed for a hard time IMO.

I don't think the right will rise again in Germany, more likely in France I'd say based on the size of the vote Le Pen's lot got at the last election.

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helsinki had a tip off and employed a private security firm to patrol the central square. In Sweden there were also reports of assault in the city of kalmar..... but hey, let's all remain "touchy feelly" about this eh.... !!! #pun

All events of the type that were on have private security, they will not have been employed due to any "tip off", but hey-ho, fuel for the fire.

Edited by HelsinkiSaintee
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It's unrealistic to expect that all migrants will be cute and cuddly families. All cultures have scumbags. Displaced communities will also have a scumbag element. If they break the law then they should be punished. 

Should every culture be tarnished by the crimes that some of them commit or by extreme views that some of them believe?

Should Scottish people be judged everywhere else in the world because of the sectarianism of some?

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It's unrealistic to expect that all migrants will be cute and cuddly families. All cultures have scumbags. Displaced communities will also have a scumbag element. If they break the law then they should be punished. 

Should every culture be tarnished by the crimes that some of them commit or by extreme views that some of them believe?

Should Scottish people be judged everywhere else in the world because of the sectarianism of some?

True.  I've been harrassed by allsorts.

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North African crimewave hits Merkel

Members of the anti-immigrant group Pegida are stopped by police before a rally in Leipzig
Jan Woitas/ DPA
  • Pegida protesters
     
Last updated at 12:01AM, January 13 2016

The high level of crime committed by north Africans in Germany has been revealed as Angela Merkel asked Algeria for help to speed up extraditions after the New Year’s Eve attacks.

Forty per cent of migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia committed a crime within a year of arriving in Germany, compared with 0.5 per cent of Syrians, according to a report. The analysis came from police records in Cologne, where 516 complaints have been made after mob violence and sex attacks on women on New Year’s Eve.

It was the first time that most people in Germany, which tries to protect minorities from stigmatisation, had heard a breakdown of crime by nationality.

As polls showed that support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has risen to 11.5 per cent, Bild newspaper printed leaked police details of more than 100 of the attacks. Typical of many was: “Female victim groped by group of north African-looking men and mobile phone stolen.”

The interior ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia, which includes Cologne, ordered the breakdown. In the 13 months to November 2015, there were crimes recorded from 0.5 per cent of the Syrian population in the Cologne area, by 0.6 per cent of the Afghans, by 2.4 per cent of Iraqis and 3.6 per cent of Iranians.

This compared with 40 per cent for Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians combined. Pickpocketing was the most common offence, but break-ins and thefts from cars were on the rise.

“In Moroccan and Tunisian families, often the eldest son is selected to travel to Germany, where he has to earn the money for the traffickers in a short period,” Ralf Jäger, the state’s interior minister, said.

Mrs Merkel, under huge pressure to show that she can keep Germans safe, appealed to Abdelmalek Sellal, the Algerian prime minister, for help speeding up extraditions when he visited Berlin yesterday.

She faces the threat of court action from allies in her own conservative coalition to close Germany’s borders. The Christian Social Union party, which runs the state of Bavaria and has three seats in the national cabinet, obtained legal advice that there was no “unlimited” obligation to take refugees, as Mrs Merkel has insisted. The chancellor has steadfastly refused to talk of limits to asylum seekers.

• A Jewish leader in Marseilles has advised Jews to stop wearing the traditional skull cap after a Turkish Kurd teenager attacked a Jewish teacher. Zvi Ammar, head of the Israelite Consistory of Marseilles, asked Jews to go without the kippa “until better days”.

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Cologne attacks: Migrant men banned from German swimming pool

  • 15 January 2016
  • From the section Europe
 
Image copyright EPA Image caption The behaviour of men from a nearby asylum seekers' shelter apparently caused women to leave

A German town has banned male asylum seekers from a public swimming pool after women complained of harassment.

A government official in Bornheim said men from a nearby asylum shelter would be barred until they "got the message" that such behaviour was not acceptable.

It follows outrage over hundreds of sexual assaults in nearby Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve.

Those attacks, by men of mainly Arab and North African origin, raised tensions over the influx of migrants.

More than 1.1 million people claimed asylum in Germany in 2015.

 Image copyright AFP Image caption It is unclear how the ban will be enforced

The head of the social affairs department in Bornheim - about 20km (12 miles) south of Cologne - said the move to ban migrant men followed increasing number of reports of inappropriate behaviour from female swimmers and staff members.

"There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool... by groups of young men, and this has prompted some women to leave," Markus Schnapka told Reuters.

He said none of the complaints involved a crime being committed, but that social workers in the town would help to ensure the asylum seekers changed their behaviour.

It is unclear how this rule will be enforced, although Germany is set to introduce new ID cards for migrants in February.

Support falling

Correspondents say the pool ban is the latest sign of increased tensions following the Cologne attacks.

On Thursday, the authorities in another town in west Germany, Rheinberg, cancelled a carnival parade planned for February over security concerns.

Rheinberg's public security chief, Jonny Strey, told German media that events in Cologne had influenced the decision and that officials were worried about from men from migrant backgrounds misbehaving.

Rheinberg Mayor Frank Tatzel later denied this, according to Reuters.

Cologne authorities expressed concern about the city's own carnival in February following the NYE attacks, promising to step up security and public awareness.

An opinion poll on Friday showed public anxiety increasing over the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Germany.

In the research, published by broadcaster ZDF (in German), 66% of the 1,203 respondents said Germany could not handle the arrivals, up from 46% in December.

Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure over her policies to welcome refugees, also fell - with 39% of people agreeing the chancellor was doing a "good job" in this area, down from 47% in December.

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Austria deploys army to halt migrants intending to transit through Germany

Published time: 16 Jan, 2016 06:36
© Michael Dalder
© Michael Dalder / Reuters
Austria is set to use its army to stop refugees intending to transit through Germany and not apply for asylum there, as hundreds are being rejected at the German border. More than 1,000 migrants with forged IDs are being turned around at the Austrian border each week.

The new regulations issued by the Austrian Defense Ministry came into effect Saturday.

Now migrants coming to Austria to travel through Germany and beyond will be denied access and sent back home, Austrian authorities said on Friday. Slovenia is expected to resort to similar measures in order to avoid becoming a refugee bottleneck.

“What is the situation currently on the German-Austrian border? That only those who want asylum in Germany are being let through, and those who want to travel onward are sent back,” Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told state broadcaster ORF, as quoted by Reuters.

“We will stop them directly on our southern border [with Slovenia] as of the end of next week,” Mikl-Leitner added.

The soldiers’ presence will be made “clearly visible” to deter migrants trying to find illegal ways into Austria.

Over 3,000 migrants who arrived under false identities have been sent back, border officials reported.

Slovenia will also have to take a similar decision or cope with the rejected migrants, a Slovenian Interior Ministry official said.

READ MORE: EU countries 'failed to deliver' on promises to resolve refugee crisis – Juncker

Austria has been engaged in trilateral talks with Germany and Slovenia aimed at finding new ways to manage the refugee and migrant influx.

The negotiations went well and have so far resulted in tightened border control checks to stop illegal immigration, according to Mikl-Leitner.

“The states have agreed that a joint solution has to be reached,” Slovenian State Secretary Bostjan Sefic said, adding that Slovenia will deal with the problem on its own if the countries fail to come up with a coordinated response.

The whole process was started by Germany, which since the beginning of January has been turning away hundreds of migrants with fake IDs heading to Sweden or Denmark. Those people then turned up in neighboring Austria and Slovenia.

Austria and Slovenia have been a way station for hundreds of thousands migrants heading to Germany since September. Only 90,000 migrants have applied for asylum in Austria compared to 1.1 million taken in by Germany. The government in Berlin is reconsidering its open-door policy to welcome refugees after a whole series of sexual assaults on women by male asylum-seekers.

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2,100% rise in migrants crossing the Mediterranean: Shocking figures reveal 31,244 arrived in Greece during the first 16 days of 2016

  • 31,244 migrants have made the sea journey to Greece since New Year
  • Migrants crossing numbers are up 21 time from this time last year 
  • Number of new arrivals to Greece is likely to exceed 853,650 of last year 
  • For the latest on the migrant crisis visit www.dailymail.co.uk/migrantcrisis

By Tom Wyke for MailOnline and Agencies

Published: 14:57, 19 January 2016 | Updated: 15:51, 19 January 2016

An estimated 31,244 migrants have braved the deadly boat crossing over the Mediterranean Sea to Greece in the first 16 days of this year.

The shocking statistic represents 21 times the number of migrants who crossed during the same period in January 2015, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

It is expected that the number of new arrivals to Greece is likely to exceed the 853,650 migrants who crossed over to Greece by sea last year.

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