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| Europe | |
| Freezing Migrants Cry Foul as German Cold Bites | |
| 2015-10-21 | |
"They say they are going to do something, but they are not telling us what. Maybe we are all going to turn to ice," said a 25-year-old Afghan who went by the name Hussein, and who has been living in one of several tent cities set up by authorities in the northern city of Hamburg. "We cannot be under the tent for more than an hour at night," he said. At the major northern port, as in other parts of the country, sleeping without heating is quickly becoming a nightmare as the temperatures tumble close to freezing. And the German winter, infamously harsh and biting, has not even begun. In Hamburg alone, 4,000 asylum seekers are sleeping in unheated tents, and some migrants, fed up with the cold and damp, have taken to the streets to complain about their lodgings. "We are freezing," they wrote on a cardboard sign. But the problem is not unique to the city. With between 800,000 and one million asylum seekers expected this year, Germany is facing an unprecedented refugee relief crisis. Some 42,000 asylum seekers were sleeping in tents across the country at the beginning of October, according to newspaper Die Welt. And the situation has become critical, warned Ulrika Kostka, director of aid group Caritas. "We can no longer rule out the risk that people could die" from the cold, she was quoted as saying by newspaper Tagesspiegel. In the eastern Saxony region, the Red Thingy also sounded a similar warning about tent cities. "It has become a health problem. People are falling ill because of the cold," said front man Kai Kranich. "We have distributed all the sleeping bags and blankets that we have but they are not enough." Mobile heaters have been placed in tents to provide some warmth for now, said Kranich, but he warned that it was only a temporary solution. German authorities have been scrambling to find lodgings for the record number of new arrivals. In Berlin, a special hall that is used every January for an annual agriculture exhibition, has been transformed into an emergency shelter with bunk beds for 1,000 refugees. Sports gyms have also been requisitioned, sparking complaints from some parents whose children have been unable to go to basketball or volleyball training as both rain and temperatures fall outside. Wooden shelters are also being built to protect migrants from the cold. Winfried Kretschmann, the Greens party leader of Baden-Wuertemberg state, has warned: "We don't have a magic wand to create lodgings." "At the moment we are managing, but it's going to become more difficult," he said during a meeting of state premiers. And the emergency is not limited to cold nights. In the days, too, hundreds of migrants queue outside Berlin's main refugee registration centre for hours every day, shivering and drenched under the cold rain. A new registration center has now been opened to bring some welcome relief. But as Mario Czaja, the social affairs manager for the city, said: "Berlin used to receive between 1,500 and 2,000 asylum seekers a year. "But at the moment, that's the number of refugees arriving every single day." | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #13 Actually winter nights in the Syrian deserts are not exactly pleasant. Alternative housing? WTF do you expect? That half a million people can be accomodated within days in comfortable brick houses with central heating? You can't sleep in unheated tents in October? Thousands of German hikers in the Alps manage to do that. No problem with clothes and blankets or a sleeping bag. I've managed minus 20 degrees in a tent. |
| Posted by: European Conservatives 2015-10-21 22:38 |
| #12 #10 EC is right. I grew up in the Virginia mountains, and also spent 3 years living in Frankfurt am Main. I'll admit I didn't like the weather in Germany - too many cloudy days - and I don't like cold weather anyway, but Germany wasn't any worse than those Virginia mountains (though the winter was certainly longer - or maybe it just seemed longer). And I don't want to hear one word about how most of the You don't like the European winters? Go to Libya; it's warm there and y'all will fit right in the rest of the jihadis there. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2015-10-21 21:59 |
| #11 Winter is rayciss. Notice how snow is white? Coincidence? Shyeah, right. |
| Posted by: charger 2015-10-21 19:52 |
| #10 "And the German winter, infamously harsh and biting" Oh come on now |
| Posted by: European Conservatives 2015-10-21 18:58 |
| #9 "Freezing Migrants Cry Foul as German Cold Bites" And who exactly forced you to invade Germany (and the rest of Europe)? Go back to your original hell-holes, where the weather's warmer. Meanwhile, I'll think about looking for my femto-violin. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2015-10-21 13:55 |
| #8 "Winter's coming" |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2015-10-21 13:55 |
| #7 My thoughts exactly, grom. Let the warmists put their money where the hot air escapes their bodies are. |
| Posted by: gorb 2015-10-21 13:09 |
| #6 I think that Germany et al should pay the freight to return them to their nice warm climates. That's a low cost for the huge mistake of letting them in in the first place. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2015-10-21 13:02 |
| #5 You can always go back to where you came from. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2015-10-21 10:46 |
| #4 Good thing there is a global worming. Otherwise... |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-10-21 09:32 |
| #3 As the thermometer dips towards zero in Germany, thousands of asylum seekers spending their nights in tents are pleading for authorities to find them alternative housing. I'm sure our fathers and grandfathers who wintered over in '44 in tents fell your pain. Not to mention the guys in the fields without tents around Bastogne and the Belgium civilian huddled in ruins. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-10-21 09:27 |
| #2 No problem. Russia will provide Germany mass quantities of therms pro-bono, right? |
| Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 2015-10-21 09:15 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Vinegar Thath7626 2015-10-21 05:07 |