Germany Still Struggling to Accommodate Ukrainian Refugees and Asylum Seekers
In addition, now childcare centres and schools, as well as health care, have expressed concern about this situation, AtoZSerwisPlus.de reports.
In this regard, the Head of the Landkreistag (Association of Districts), Reinhard Sager, has also emphasized that many districts in Germany have already reached the limits of their capacity to accept more war refugees from Ukraine.
According to the latest data from the United Nations Refugee Agency, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine on February 24, Germany has accepted over one million Ukrainian refugees into the country.
Meanwhile, since January of this year, about 115,000 people have applied for asylum, thus exceeding the number of asylum applicants marked in Germany in 2015.
German cities are beginning to feel under pressure because asylum seekers and refugees are sleeping on stretcher beds in gymnasiums.
“We don’t want conditions like 2015/2016, but we’re heading towards that,” Sager pointed out in this regard.
Commenting on this situation, the Mayor of Münster and the president of the Städtetag (Association of Cities), Marcus Lewe, said that with the beginning of winter, many refugees from Ukraine would arrive in Germany. He also added that some of the Ukrainian refugees already resettled in Germany might not be able to stay living in private housing and will have to move to state housing or emergency shelters.
As Lewe explains, during the winter, some German cities will have to accommodate refugees in hotels, gymnasiums, or other facilities.
According to research by Mediendienst Integration, one out of every 16 German states have announced that they can no longer accept refugees.
In early August, municipalities in the central German state of Thuringia noted that there were almost no shelters left to accommodate refugees from Ukraine.
Regardless of this fact, from the beginning of the war until August, Thuringia has sheltered about 23,000 Ukrainian refugees.
According to the editorial network of Germany RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), the problem of sheltering refugees has recently come as a result of the number of unauthorized entries at the Czech-German border, which has reached a high record.
Such data reveal that in June, Germany’s federal police had recorded about 2,000 unauthorized entries, at the same time, the number of illegal entries from this border has increased by 140 per cent.
