In the first nine months of this year, German police recorded 1,515 attacks on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees or their accommodation, compared with 1,371 attacks in the whole of 2022. The figures were released in response to a request from Germany's Left Party (Die Linke).

In the third quarter of 2023, there were 30 acts of damage to accommodation housing migrants and asylum seekers, referred to as "politically-motivated criminal offenses." In three of these cases, the attacks were "violent." 23 of them were attributed to members of German right-wing groups.

Police also said that 375 of the 417 politically-motivated crimes against migrants, asylum seekers or registered refugees were motivated by right-wing beliefs. Around 19 of the acts of crime were attributed to "ideologies from abroad," and two were classified as having been motivated by "left-wing" ideologies. In some cases the background to the attacks was declared "unclear."

'Attacked, humiliated and harassed every day'

Violence was involved in 55 of the cases, the German news agency dpa reported. "Every day, refugees in Germany are attacked, humiliated and harassed," Clara Bünger, a member of the Left Party, told the news agency.

Bünger has called upon the German government and state governments to develop and implement more protection for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as improving security at the accommodation where they are staying.

She is also concerned that the current political debate about migration policy and asylum, and how many more migrants and asylum seekers Germany can legitimately cope with, is one of the reasons for the increase in attacks. She says the tone of the debates is "paving the way for racist mobilization on the streets and acts of violence against refugees."

In June this year, Germany’s interior ministry confirmed that the rate of attacks appeared to be increasing. Between January and March 2023, police registered 45 attacks against accommodation used to house asylum seekers. That was double the figure in the same period the previous year, according to Germany’s national broadcaster ARD.

Most of the attacks involved damage to property or propaganda, police investigators said. In some cases, attackers set fire to accommodation or perpetrated grievous bodily harm against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

Language matters, Left Party warns

In June, Bünger said that politicians and public figures needed to pay attention to the kinds of language they used around migration policy. She said that using rhetoric like describing Germany as "full" could mobilize racists to start committing attacks.

In October 2023, 31,887 people applied for asylum, according to figures from the German Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). This reflected an increase on the previous month of 14.3% and a 33.3% increase on the same figures for October 2022.

Syrians account for the large number of initial asylum applications in Germany, followed by people from Turkey and Afghanistan.

According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the greatest number of attacks on asylum seekers in Germany took place in 2016. During that year, there were 3,500 registered attacks. In 2019, the number of attacks stood at more than 1,700 during the course of the year. 2023’s figures look like they are headed in a similar direction, commented Spiegel.

With dpa