Migrants: the German city of Eisenhüttenstadt, on the border with Poland, on the front line
Audio 01:19
Pakistani refugees on the lawn of the refugee registration center in Eisenhuettenstadt on September 9, 2015. AFP - PATRICK PLEUL
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Since August, the number of refugees hosted in Germany has started to rise again.
Thousands of Iraqis, Iranians and Afghans have arrived through Poland and Belarus, which agitates the migratory threat to protest against the sanctions decreed by the European Union against the repressive regime in Minsk.
The small town of Eisenhüttenstadt on the border with Poland, where there is an emergency accommodation center, is on the front line.
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With our correspondent in Berlin,
Nathalie Versieux
A jewel of steel in the days of the GDR, the small town of Eisenhüttenstadt has since lost its luster. Half of the population has left the city since the fall of the Wall and the disappearance of the industry. The businesses have closed. A few rare retirees roam the streets.
Many are worried about the arrival of refugees, like Maria: “
We see them walking in the streets. In the summer it was a lot of colored people. Now they are coming from everywhere. There was a time here, when we walked in the street, we felt like we were in Syria, with all these women walking with a headscarf. It had calmed down, many had been distributed to the rest of Germany. And then now .... We were during the week with my husband in Poland, and we saw them come out of the bushes, right at the border. But they didn't see that the police were right in front of them, and they got caught.
"
►
Read also:
Poland wants a wall on the Belarusian border to prevent migrants from entering the EU
Matthias, also retired, fears a return to the chaos of 2015, when Germany took in
a million refugees in a few months
.
“
The situation had become very calm,” he
says.
They were much less numerous.
And now, we are already at more than
2,000 arrivals in October.
We have to live with it, we can't do otherwise
!
"
►
To read also:
in Germany, the refugees of 2015 will regret “Mama Merkel”
During the legislative elections last September, one in five inhabitants voted for the far-right AfD party.
►
To read also:
The Germans, a population of increasingly varied origins
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