The initial reception center in the small German city of Suhl is able to accommodate a maximum of 1,400 people. It was forced to close its doors to new admissions at the start of October when hundreds of people arrived unexpectedly, pushing the number of residents over capacity to 1,600.

On Monday, authorities said the number was back below the safe limit, with 1,386 people currently residing in the facility. That means there is space for new arrivals, if only a handful.

While authorities at the Suhl facility were not notified of any immediate arrivals on Monday, a spokesperson for the state administration office said it does happen that new migrants arrive without warning.

The state's migration minister, Doreen Denstädt, also said it was impossible to predict how many people would need accommodation.

"The asylum seekers are assigned to us according to the so-called Königstein Key [the system for distributing asylum seekers among the German states]. We are not warned about the arrival numbers," she explained during a TV panel discussion on the German public broadcaster MDR.

"We don't know what is currently happening in the world that is causing people to flee, and we also have to acknowledge that it is not our place to judge it in any way. The (asylum seekers) are here, they are in Thuringia, and that means Thuringia has to act," the minister continued.

Chronic overcrowding

Speaking on the same program, Suhl's Lord Mayor André Knapp said the reception center in Suhl had been "chronically overcrowded" for months. Two other reception centers in Thuringia are also either approaching or have exceeded their maximum capacity.

In Eisenberg, a center designed for no more than 106 people had 135 residents on Monday, while a facility in Hermsdorf, originally intended as emergency accommodation with 720 places, was about three-quarters full with 531 residents, according to the news agency dpa.

In the first six months of 2023, more than 3,900 asylum applications were lodged in Thuringia. As in other parts of Germany, the number of asylum seekers needing accommodation and other forms of support has risen sharply, creating major challenges for the authorities.

Many municipalities have complained that they have not had enough support from the federal government, despite a recent pledge of €1.7 billion for accommodation, food and integration in 2024.

Gerd Landsberg, head of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, has called for "more regulation, more limitations, a fair distribution across Europe and sufficient funding for the comprehensive tasks managed by municipalities."

Also read: Are growing asylum claims putting Germany under pressure?