Asylum seekers watch as Chancellor Angela Merkel visits a Berlin refuge yesterday. Photo / AP
Asylum seekers watch as Chancellor Angela Merkel visits a Berlin refuge yesterday. Photo / AP
Merkel calls on Germans to take stand after string of ‘disgusting’ anti-migrant protests.
Angela Merkel has promised there will be "no tolerance" for violent anti-migrant protests that have gripped Germany in recent weeks.
The German chancellor called on her countrymen to make a stand against the "shameful and disgusting" protests yesterday, as she visited a migrant shelter that has been the scene of some of the worst violence.
"There is no tolerance for those people who question the dignity of others, there is no tolerance for those who are not willing to help where legal and human help is required," Merkel said.
"The more people who make this clear, the stronger we shall be."
But Merkel was booed and denounced as a "traitor" by far-right protesters as she visited the government migrant shelter in the small town of Heidenau, outside Dresden.
More than 30 police officers were injured in three nights of running battles with protesters trying to stop asylum-seekers from entering the shelter over the weekend.
"Germany will help where help is needed. This will require still more strength," Merkel said. "We cannot operate as if we were in a normal situation. We shall succeed only if we break new ground together."
Germany takes in by far the most asylum-seekers of any European Union state, and expects to host 800,000 this year.
The country recently stopped deporting Syrian refugees under EU rules that require them to claim asylum in the first country they reach, and started accepting their claims itself.
But the record numbers have led to an outbreak of violent protests from the far-right, and Merkel has been under increasing pressure to take a stand on the issue.
Two men were arrested yesterday after they broke into a migrant shelter in northern Germany armed with a 20cm knife. Migrants raised the alarm after they spotted the men outside the building in Parchim.
In a separate incident, a man was witnessed deliberately setting fire to a new shelter in Leipzig hours before the first migrants were due to arrive.
Meanwhile, a Swedish rescue crew cut up the deck of a migrant boat north of Libya yesterday to make a grisly discovery in the hull: The corpses of 51 migrants who died making the dangerous Mediterranean crossing in hopes of reaching Europe.
The Swedish ship Poseidon was already rescuing 130 migrants from a raft north of Libya's coast when it got a call to assist a nearby wooden ship, authorities said. The Swedes rescued 439 survivors from the wooden boat and then looked for the bodies.
Swedish coast guard spokesman Mattias Lindholm told the Associated Press that the victims probably died of asphyxiation.
Asylum seekers watch as Chancellor Angela Merkel visits a Berlin refuge yesterday. Photo / AP
Refugee crisis
800,000 asylum applications Germany expects this year, more than any other European Union country
€1b ($1.75b) Approved by Merkel's Cabinet to help German states and municipalities to cope with the crisis
€10b What newspaper Die Zeit believes the total cost for the year will be
