Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
05-11-2023
BERLIN: Armed police officers wave cars off the motorway going from Poland to Germany.
They’re searching for people-smugglers and their desperate cargo.
This is the German government’s latest bid to show it is getting a grip on rising levels of irregular migration but, as we found in a rural border district, there’s little sense of control.
Altenberg is a small town in Saxony, right by the Czech Republic.
Families race down a toboggan run that weaves through the forest and, when winter’s here, there’s even a small ski resort.
The local mayor, Markus Wiesenberg, says that – in this area alone – smugglers drop off people as often as once a day.
“The trafficker disappears and probably picks up the next load.”
New arrivals put a strain on local services, he says, as well as local people.
“Sometimes they find sleeping bags and campfires in the woods and they are worried for their children.”
Migration is looming large in the national debate after the far right is seen to have capitalized on the issue, fuelling recent gains in regional elections.
Ministers ordered “temporary” checks last month on Germany’s land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
The controls were renewed this week, as they have been for years on the border with Austria, and they are all within the EU’s supposedly border-free Schengen Zone.
Registered illegal entries into Germany this year are set to be their highest since 2016.
The country remains a top destination for asylum seekers.
In August, it received around 30 per cent of the 100,000 applications lodged within the EU, Norway and Switzerland.
Inside an old youth hostel in rural Saxony, more than 50 men are waiting for their future to begin.
Thirty-three-year-old Muhammad Abdoum, from Syria, has successfully applied for asylum and hopes soon to find work.
He’s adopted a leadership role at this migrant housing centre and seems naturally upbeat.
However, he becomes tearful when recounting a “lost” decade in his life with the prospect of starting again from “zero.”
“I lost too much (many) friends. I lost 10 years. What did I make for myself?”
A long journey, he tells me, took him from war-torn Syria to Turkey, through the Balkans and eventually here; to what feels like a remote outpost, just metres from the Czech border, surrounded by pine trees and a heavy morning mist.
Passing through other EU nations, the last leg of his travels was on a train from Prague. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
