Germany: Migration Crisis Becomes Public Health Crisis

Germany: Migration Crisis Becomes Public Health Crisis

by Soeren Kern
November 8, 2015 at 5:00 am

• German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving.
• Critics are warning that German taxpayers will end up paying billions of euros to provide healthcare for a never-ending wave of asylum seekers. This is in addition to the billions of euros already being spent to provide newcomers with food, clothing and shelter.
• In addition to the massive economic and social costs, as well as the burden of increased crime, including a rape epidemic, Germans are now facing the risk of being exposed to exotic diseases — and tuberculosis.
• Roughly 5% of asylum seekers are carrying resistant germs. In real numbers, this works out to around 75,000 newcomers with highly infectious diseases. — Dr. Jan-Thorsten Gräsner, director of the Institute for Rescue and Emergency Medicine.
• Twenty types of vaccines are now in short supply, and 16 others are no longer available at all. Because of production bottlenecks, some vaccines will not become available until 2017.
• Muslim women refuse to be treated by male doctors, and many Muslim men refuse to be treated by females. — Max Kaplan, director of the Bavarian Medical Board.
• German media outlets are downplaying the extent of the healthcare problem, apparently to avoid spreading fear or provoking anti-immigrant sentiments.

The influx of more than one million asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is placing unprecedented strain on Germany's healthcare system.

Hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms across Germany are being filled to capacity with migrants suffering maladies of all kinds, and medical personnel, including thousands of volunteers, are increasingly complaining of burnout.

Diseases are also reappearing that have not been seen in Germany for years. German public health officials are now on the lookout for Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, diphtheria, Ebola, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio, scabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhus and whooping cough. As refugee shelters fill to overflowing, doctors are also on high alert for mass outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus.

Compounding the challenge, tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Germany — particularly migrant children — have not been immunized, and German doctors are finding that needed vaccines are not readily available due to a lack of supply. Some German parents are panickingthat there are not enough vaccines to immunize their own children.

Many migrants are also suffering from a host of traumas and mental illnesses. According to the Chamber of German Psychotherapists (Bundespsychotherapeutenkammer), at least half of all migrants arriving in Germany have psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and roughly 40% have contemplated suicide.

German hospitals are also being forced to hire a virtual army of interpreters so that doctors can communicate with asylum seekers, who speak dozens of languages, dialects and variants.

At the same time, German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving.

Critics are warning that German taxpayers will end up paying billions of euros to provide healthcare for a never-ending wave of asylum seekers. This is in addition to the billions of euros already being spent to provide newcomers with food, clothing and shelter.
Many say the German government failed fully to consider the unforeseen consequences of opening the door to so many migrants. In addition to the massive economic and social costs, as well as the burden of increased crime, including a rape epidemic, Germans are now facing the risk of being exposed to exotic diseases.

German media outlets are downplaying the extent of the healthcare problem, apparently to avoid spreading fear or provoking anti-immigrant sentiments. But a growing number of German healthcare professionals are sounding the alarm.

In an interview with Die Welt, Dr. Michael Melter, the chief physician at the University Hospital Regensburg, said that migrants are arriving at his hospital with illnesses that are hardly ever seen in Germany anymore. "Some of the ailments I have not seen for 20 or 25 years," he said, "and many of my younger colleagues have actually never seen them."

Marc Schreiner, director of international relations for the German Hospital Federation (Deutschen Krankenhausgesellschaft), has echoed Melter's concerns:

"In the clinics, it is becoming increasingly common to see patients with diseases that were considered to have been eradicated in Germany, such as scabies. These diseases must be reliably diagnosed, which is a challenge."

Schreiner said that in cases of highly contagious diseases, including tuberculosis, patients must be quarantined, an expensive procedure, the costs of which are paid for by German taxpayers.

According to Schreiner, about 15% of the newly arriving migrants require immediate medical treatment. With 1.5 million asylum seekers expected to arrive in Germany in 2015, this means that 225,000 migrants will have an urgent need for medical attention.
Siegfried Hasenbein, director of the Bavarian Hospital Association (Bayerische Krankenhausgesellschaft), estimates that in 2015, between 25,000 and 30,000 migrants will be treated in Bavarian hospitals alone. In addition, this year between 75,000 and 90,000 migrants will receive ambulatory or outpatient care.

According to Hasenbein, these numbers appear insignificant when compared to the three million hospital visits that normally occur in Bavaria every year. The problem arises in that the migration crisis is straining the Bavarian healthcare system unevenly, with hospitals in migrant "hotspots" such as Deggendorf, Ingolstadt and Passau bearing the brunt of medical care.

Markus Beier, director of the Bavarian Association of Family Physicians (Bayerischer Hausärzteverband), says that doctors in areas with large concentrations of asylum seekers are being called upon all hours of the night and day, making it impossible for them to provide anyone with superior levels of care.

Max Kaplan, director of the Bavarian Medical Board (Bayerische Landesärztekammer), saysthat the challenges associated with medical treatment for migrants are exacerbated by language and cultural barriers, which are "tiresome, time consuming and sometimes impossible to overcome." Adding insult to injury, he says, many Muslim women refuse to be treated by male doctors, and many Muslim men refuse to be treated by females.

In an effort to prevent diseases from spreading, Kaplan has called on German public health officials to order medical exams for all asylum seekers at the initial point of entry into Germany, before they are sent to different parts of the country. "This is in the best interest of the refugees, and also of the native population," he said.

In a November 2 interview with Spiegel TV, Dr. Ralf Mütterlein, director of the Pulmonary Clinic (Klinik für Lungen- und Bronchialheilkunde) in Parsberg, estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 asylum seekers in Germany have tuberculosis, but only a small fraction these are currently in quarantine.

Migrants who are taken to Mütterlein's clinic are held in quarantine for up to 18 months at a time to prevent the disease from spreading to the population at large. The costs to German taxpayers are astronomical: Between 10,000 and 12,000 euros per migrant per month. Over 18 months, the total cost often exceeds 200,000 euros per migrant.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/large/1333.jpgA migrant from Africa is shown in a Spiegel TV news segment from this month, being treated in a special unit for the involuntary quarantine of tuberculosis patients, at Parsberg District Hospital #1, in Bavaria.

Meanwhile, a report by Die Welt describes efforts by German health officials to contain the spread of so-called resistant germs:

"Physicians are currently on high alert, because with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees, infectious diseases could enter the country. This is not hysteria. It is simply a challenge our healthcare system has not faced for many decades.
"There is a danger that a refugee is 'colonized' — as doctors call it — with dangerous germs. Every person carries bacterial germs in and on the skin. For healthy people they are harmless. They become a problem when they spread among critically ill and immunocompromised patients in a clinic.

"The problem: In the refugees' countries of origin, resistant germs may spread more often than in Germany. So a refugee is immediately tested upon admission to a German clinic. Only when it is certain that there is no danger, it the patient moved to a shared room."

Dr. Jan-Thorsten Gräsner, director of the Institute for Rescue and Emergency Medicine (Institut für Rettungs- und Notfallmedizin), estimates that roughly 5% of asylum seekers are carrying resistant germs. In real numbers, this works out to around 75,000 newcomers with highly infectious diseases.

The Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute, a key governmental agency for the safeguarding of public health in Germany, has advised healthcare professionals, as well as those who are working as volunteers in refugee shelters, to update their immunizations.
But the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines (Paul-Ehrlich-Institut), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Health, has warned that 20 types of vaccines are now in short supply, and 16 others are no longer available at all. Because of production bottlenecks, some vaccines will not become available until 2017.

Stefan Derix, director of the Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine (Apothekerkammer Nordrhein), said the shortage of vaccines is due to the massive influx of asylum seekers. He said the Ministry of Health normally orders vaccine supplies one year in advance, and that no one in the government had anticipated that Germany would be taking in so many migrants this year.

Dr. Wolfram Hartmann, president of the Cologne-based Professional Association of Pediatricians (Berufsverband der Kinder- und Jugendärzte), has warned that many of the vaccines needed to immunize both native German children and migrant children for diphtheria, polio, tetanus and whooping cough are not available, neither in Germany nor in any other European country. He also said that basic vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella are in short supply.

In a statement, Hartmann wrote:

"We cannot provide native German children and refugees alike with the basic vaccines. The vaccine shortage, which is the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies, must urgently be made a top priority of the Health Minister! Children have a right to vaccinations, especially for chronically ill children who need timely vaccinations against flu, especially if they are housed in communal accommodations.
"The federal government must now act urgently and enforce the right of children to vaccination. The vaccine supply is just as much of a national responsibility as is the supply of physicians."

Kordula Schulz-Asche, a politician with the Greens Party, warned against holding migrants responsible for the vaccine shortage. "The current tense vaccine situation must not be misused to stir up public opinion against refugees," she said.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, hospitals are requiring their personnel to attend courses on how to treat patients with exotic illnesses hardly ever seen in Germany. Hospital workers in Bielefeld and Siegburg are said to be groaning under the strain of having to examine up to 80 migrants a day for tuberculosis. "The workload has increased tremendously," a worker told Westdeutscher Rundfunk, a public broadcaster. Other hospitals in the state lack sufficient personnel and equipment, including the x-ray machines needed to examine patients with tuberculosis.

In Lower Saxony, public health officials, fearful of a mass outbreak of influenza, are strugglingwith the logistics of vaccinating tens of thousands of asylum seekers housed in refugee shelters across the state. With more than 1,000 new migrants arriving in Lower Saxony every day, initial medical exams of newcomers are backlogged by weeks, a period during which undetected diseases can spread.

In Berlin, police were forced to apologize for recommending that asylum seekers suffering from scabies, a highly contagious skin disease, be required to wear armbands to distinguish them from migrants who are healthy. The plan was for them to wear armbands with the capital letter 'K' for Krätze (German for scabies); their immediate family were to have worn armbands with the capital letter 'A' for Angehörigen (German for next of kin).
Meanwhile, reports of health-related scares, especially those involving tuberculosis, have become a daily occurrence in Germany.

In Krefeld, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, a 27-year-old migrant was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was being held in quarantine at a local pulmonary clinic. In Lünen, also in North Rhine-Westphalia, four migrants were diagnosed with tuberculosis.
In Nattheim, a town in Baden-Württemberg, asylum seekers at a refugee shelter underwent mass immunization after a child at the shelter fell ill with chickenpox. In Ellwangen, also in Baden-Württemberg, an asylum seeker diagnosed with tuberculosis escaped from a hospital. He remains at large.

In Gransee, a town in the eastern state of Brandenburg, a migrant was diagnosed withtuberculosis.

In Würzburg, more than 400 asylum seekers were mass immunized for chicken pox, diphtheria, measles, mumps, polio and tetanus. In Heidenheim, a town in Baden-Württemberg, public health officials are preparing for potential outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus at local refugee shelters this winter.

In Cologne, police cordoned off a refugee shelter housing more than 1,000 migrants in the Chorweiler district after a male refugee from Africa showed symptoms of Ebola. The man, who was coughing up blood for more than three days before anyone called a doctor, was rushed to a local hospital, where he was diagnosed with a gastrointestinal illness. Earlier, the same refugee shelter was the scene of an E. coli scare potentially affecting 800 migrants.

In Bochum, a 16-year-old migrant from Guinea showing symptoms of Ebola was placed in quarantine. In Saxony, public health officials are now testing all incoming asylum seekers forEbola.

In Düsseldorf, a 30-year-old migrant from Algeria was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was being held in quarantine at a local hospital. Municipal health officials say that in 2014, there were 50 confirmed cases of tuberculosis in the city. In 2015, that number was surpassed in August, before migrants began arriving en masse in September and October.

In Tegernsee, a town in Bavaria, a 23-year-old migrant from Eritrea who was diagnosed withtuberculosis escaped from a refugee shelter. Local officials failed to inform the public about the incident for nearly one month, until they were confronted by a local newspaper, theMünchner Merkur. Wolfgang Rzehak, a local politician with the Greens Party, justified the media blackout: "We have to find a middle road between informing the public and not becoming a panic machine."

In Frankfurt, a 33-year-old migrant from Bulgaria who was diagnosed with tuberculosisescaped from a hospital and remains at large. Again, local officials kept quiet about the incident, until someone leaked information about it to the German newspaper, Bild.

In Berlin, a schoolteacher in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district was diagnosed with tuberculosis; doctors say he was probably infected by one of his students. Also in Berlin, security guards at a refugee shelter in the Lichterfelde-Süd district locked nearly a dozen migrants in a bathroom after they were suspected of having tuberculosis. They were later transferred to a local hospital.

In Hamburg, public health officials quarantined a refugee shelter in the Jenfeld district after an outbreak of scabies. Also in Hamburg, a 17-year-old migrant from Sierra Leone was rushed to a local hospital and quarantined on suspicion that he had Ebola — just three days after arriving in Germany. Separately, at a refugee shelter in the Bahrenfeld district of Hamburg, firefighters wearing head-to-toe Ebola protection suits escorted migrants suspected of having Ebola to a local hospital.

In Bremen, after an asylum seeker was diagnosed with tuberculosis and doctors warned of the risk of contagion, all 200 migrants housed at refugee shelter on Steinsetzer Straße underwent chest x-rays to test for the disease.

In Munich, health officials are expecting more than 350 new cases of tuberculosis in 2015. The increase is being attributed to the large number of asylum seekers arriving in the city.

In Stuttgart, an average of 145 asylum seekers housed at the city's convention center seekmedical attention every day. Common maladies include measles, chickenpox, flu infections, dysentery and scabies caused by mites.

In Rheingau-Taunus, a district in the state of Hesse, public health officials say they need more money and medical personnel to deal with the influx of migrants at 60 local refugee shelters. The health department expects to treat more than 1,500 newcomers this year, including a large number of children who lack proper immunization. The department has reported 60 cases of scabies and tuberculosis. According to Monika Merkert, a local health inspector: "The newly arriving asylum seekers bring diseases that occur only rarely in Germany."
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/68...-crisis?anid=7

The German government is implementing a genocide against its own people for the benefit aliens, most of whom hate the West and its Caucasian people. This is sick beyond words.

But being good little Marxists many Germans can boast that in spite of the mass rape of their daughters, wives and mothers, in spite of their friends dying from diseases brought in by the German hating Muslims, they never did anything supposedly "racists" even in self defense and contrary to the instinct for survival. My, my isn't it ever so noble not to act like a supposed "racists."

SICK, PSYCHOTICALLY MENTALLY SICK. What else would a normal sane person call it?

All the politicians that signed the letter to "send us the refugees and more of them immediately" (have to try & acquire all their email addresses when I have time) and john kerry ARE TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND WILL BE ENDANGERING US TREMENDOUSLY. They need to see this article and tell us if immigrants will be tested for diseases before arrival. It would be preferable that they be sent somewhere near their homeland for a temporary stay till they can return there rather than brought to the USA.

OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD HAVE DISEASES WE DO NOT HAVE OR AT LEAST RECENTLY BECAUSE WE TOOK RESPONSIBILITY TO CONTROL THEM. ALL THE INDIAN H-1B VISA WORKERS ARE NOT TESTED FOR TB AND MANY HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH INFECTED AREAS AND SOME HAVE COME DOWN WITH TB HERE. YES WE CAN TREAT IT BUT THEIR IS A PERIOD OF TIME BEFORE IT IS DETECTED WHERE OUR CITIZENS CAN CONTRACT. IT REQUIRES 9 MONTHS OF 4 DIFFERENT ANTIBIOTICS.
NO THANKS!

What a nightmare these so-called leaders may be exposing their people to. To think there was a time in our own country immigrants, entering legally of course, were first screened for diseases. There may be some very serious consequences due to the current trend of open borders in many countries.

Some forms of TB that have come into the country from Third World nations are very drug resistant and they are hugely expensive to treat. Multi drug resistant types can cost from $134,000 to $430,000 PER PATIENT. Ordinary TB cost about $17,000 per patient. It is easy to see that an epidemic of the resistant forms could crash our whole health care system.

It is irresponsible to the degree of being immoral to expose innocent Americans to this stuff. There is a serious crime called "Depraved Indifference" which means somebody has the knowledge of extreme danger and the ability to render aid or protect an innocent person but does nothing at all.

I firmly believe that those who are cramming illegal aliens into this country without their being thoroughly tested for diseases are at a minimum guilty of "Depraved Indifference."

WATCH: THE ANTI-MIGRANT VIDEO GOING VIRAL ACROSS EUROPE

‘With Open Gates: The forced collective suicide of European nations’, a slick, hard-hitting film about the European migrant crisis is going viral in Europe, already watched at least half a million times.

Although the 19-minute film may feel like a dispatch from the future, it is cut entirely from recent news reports, police camera footage, and interviews. Kicking off with scenes of a modern car ferry

disgorging thousands of illegals into Greece, the film then cuts to dozens of aerial shots of columns of migrants marching north into Europe.

The film then changed to the harrowing testimony of one young Greek woman who was unable to hide her horror and despair at the scale of the migrant crisis sweeping over her home island of Lesbos.

Just six miles from the Turkish coast, the island was subjected to migrant riots in September as newcomers turned on their hosts for not moving them to mainland Europe fast enough.

As Breitbart London reported at the time, the tearful woman tells a news crew: “We are in danger, every day, every minute. We need someone to protect us.

They come into our houses. I want to go to work, but I can’t. Our children want to go to school, but they can’t. They have stolen our lives!”.

Also featured is American presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who gives his opinion on the migrant crisis: “I’ve been watching this migration, and I’ve seen the people.

“I mean, these are men. They are mostly men, and they are strong men… they look like prime time solders. Look, Europe is going to have to handle, but they are going to have riots in Germany.

“I always thought Merkel was a great leader, but what she’s done in Germany is insane”.

The video is being rapidly shared on social media and online message boards and has been viewed at least half a million times, having been uploaded to platforms including YouTube and Facebook among others dozens of times.

Although the main thrust of the film is to goad native Europeans against mass migration and the negative effects of multiculturalism, the film also paradoxically takes a swipe at one European minority

group who stand to lose almost the most from mass Muslim immigration.

It also includes a short clip of discredited, anti-Semitic politician Nick Griffin, former Member of the European Parliament and leader of the British National Party.

The inclusion of Mr. Griffin, an unpopular figure even in Britain’s nationalist right and the rapid success of the film in the Netherlands suggests the film may not have been edited by a British citizen.

Breitbart London has reported at length on the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe which has arrived with mass migration.

From Jews being specifically targeted for degrading house-invasion rape-thefts to Jews being excluded from Holocaust commemorations because of Muslim attendees hijacking events, migrant-Europe

is now hostile towards Jews at a level not seen in decades.

Below the video on YouTube, uploaded on Monday by anonymous user Death of Nations, the editor warns: “This video will not be online long, download and mirror it while you can”.

“At current immigration levels and disappearing birth rates native Europeans are destined to become a minority in their own countries within decades. This is already the case for many of Europe’s largest cities.”

“Millions of young Muslim men leave behind their family, pay thousands to criminal traffickers to reach the land they have been promised by European politicians illegally.

Dubbed by the media as “refugees”, they cross through 6-10 safe countries to reach wealthy nations like Germany or Sweden where they hope to receive a better life at the expense of the taxpayer.

Only a fraction of them are Syrian, as they enter unfiltered, without any documents and without any legitimate right to claim asylum. Women and children are rarely seen, except in the cherry-picked sob stories of the media”.

At the end of the lengthy call to arms, the writer concludes: “We are still at a point where you will not get imprisoned for your political opinion in most European countries, but this will change very soon.

Do not be apathetic, do not be weak.

Be someone that can be proud to call himself European”.

WATCH: The Anti-Migrant Video Going Viral Across Europe

http://youtu.be/44vzMNG2fZc

THE LATEST: SWEDEN URGES EU COUNTRIES TO HELP WITH REFUGEES

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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- The latest about the flow of people traveling across Europe in search of a better life. All times local.

9:50 p.m.

Sweden's interior minister says the move to introduce temporary border controls is a way to "bring order" to the Swedish asylum system while also sending a signal to the European Union.

Anders Ygeman said Wednesday that "Sweden is the country that has taken the greatest responsibility for the refugee crisis" and that "the other countries also have to take their responsibility."

It wasn't immediately clear whether the move would allow Sweden to turn people away at the border. But it would hinder people from transiting through the country to reach neighboring Finland and Norway.

Ygeman said migrants arriving at the border would have to decide whether to apply for asylum in Sweden or to turn back around.

Most migrants are coming to Sweden by boat from Germany or across the Oresund bridge from Denmark.

9:30 p.m.

French President Francois Hollande says "maximal" political and diplomatic pressure should be applied on the "unscrupulous leaders" of Eritrea, whose citizens have been fleeing in droves for years to Europe.

Hollande said Eritrea "is becoming empty of its own population." He spoke Wednesday at a European Union-African summit on migrants in Malta.

Eritreans are fleeing what human rights watchdogs call an oppressive state, where jailing can last indefinitely and conscription can last years.

They constitute one of the largest groups from Africa seeking asylum in Europe. Tens of thousands have escaped to Europe, many making perilous sailings in smugglers' boats across the Mediterranean to Italy.

Hollande said that Europe's dealings with Eritrea require "a job to be done which is political, and which needs a strict and demanding diplomacy."

9:15 p.m.

The head of the African Union has warned against setting up migrant reception centers in Africa where people are held until they can be granted asylum or be sent home.

AU chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said Wednesday that such facilities "whatever we call them, will become de-facto detention centers."

She said that women and children in particular would be in danger if held there.

Her remarks came during a summit of European Union and African leaders, where the EU is looking to halt the flow of people coming from Africa and send those already in Europe back more quickly.

Zuma also hit out at some European countries that "have taken a fortress approach" to migration.

9:10 p.m.

Sweden says it will introduce temporary border controls to stem the flow of migrants into the Scandinavian country.

Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the border controls will be introduced at noon Thursday local time and last initially for ten days until Nov. 21.

Sweden says migration authorities are overstretched and nearly 200,000 asylum-seekers are expected this year. Relative to population size - Sweden has 9.7 million people - no other EU country comes close.

8:50 p.m.

Tensions are mounting on the Slovenia-Croatia border after Slovenia started building a fence on disputed territory to stem an influx of migrants.

AP journalists saw Croatian police demand that Slovenia take down a section of the fence on Wednesday.

Croatian special forces have arrived at the Harmica border crossing on the Croatian side, while Slovenian special police with long barrel weapons are standing on the Slovenian side.

A helicopter is flying above illuminating the area with a spotlight.

Croatia authorities are claiming that the Slovenian fence has entered Croatian territory in seven locations and want it removed.

Slovenia denies any part of the fence is on Croatian soil. Both countries are locked in a dispute over certain parts of their territory after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

8:30 p.m.

The European Union is renewing calls for member countries to contribute hundreds of millions of euros to a fund to help African nations better manage migration given the tepid response so far.

The European Commission has put 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) into the "trust fund" and wants EU nations to match that figure.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday that "we do think that 1.8 billion is not enough."

He said that 25 member states had only offered "small amounts" so far.

Juncker's appeal came at a migration summit of EU and African leaders on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Ethiopia signed a migration deal with the EU on Wednesday, securing access to the fund.

8:20 p.m.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec has informed Austrian authorities that the razor-wire fence his country is erecting along the border with Croatia to stem the flow of migrants will be 80 kilometers

(50 miles) long, according to the Austrian Press Agency.

Slovenia started erecting the fence Wednesday morning on two locations along its 670-kilometer (400-mile) border with Croatia.

Erjavec explained the fence will direct the migrants toward registration centers, Josef Ostermayer, senior deputy to Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, told reporters after the meeting in Vienna.

Ostermayer said fences don't stop migrants, who always find alternative routes.

7:20 p.m.

The European Union and Ethiopia have cut a deal to tackle migration and human smuggling.

The deal was signed Wednesday as EU and African leaders met in Malta looking for ways to stop the flow of people looking for work in Europe.

Under the agreement, Ethiopia would have access to money from a 1.8 billion euro ($1.9 billion) trust fund to help African nations better manage migration.

Ethiopia is a major hub for people who are trying to reach Europe. It is also home to more than 700,000 refugees from other countries.

4:25 p.m.

Polish and Czech officials say that the Czech Republic will represent Poland at an informal European Union summit on Thursday on migration, the result of domestic political infighting in Poland.

Poland's outgoing centrist prime minister, Ewa Kopacz, cannot attend the EU summit because she and her government must resign the same day at the swearing-in of the newly elected parliament.

Poland's conservative president, Andrzej Duda, set the day for parliament's first sitting for Thursday, preventing Kopacz from joining other heads of government and sparking accusations that Duda is

trying to keep Poland from playing a constructive role in the talks on migration.

Duda won the presidency in May, representing the populist and Euroskeptic Law and Justice party, which also won a parliamentary majority in an election Oct. 25.

2:40 p.m.

Austria's Interior Ministry says it expects a record number of 95,000 asylum applications this year.

The forecast seen Wednesday on the ministry website exceeds ministry estimates of 80,000 for all of 2015 published just a few weeks ago and is more than double the previous high of 39,854 in 2002.

Austria initially was mostly a transit country for those wanting to go to Germany, Sweden and other destinations further. But the new numbers reflect that it now is increasingly a final destination for

many refugees seeking safety and a new life.

2:30 p.m.

A leading politician in the Italian Parliament is decrying as "cynical and inhumane" the erecting of fences between European Union countries to try to keep out migrants.

Laura Boldrini, president of the Chamber of Deputies, also said Wednesday that Europe needs to "implement protection, not defense" measures like the razor-wire fence Italy's neighbor to the east,

Slovenia, began putting up along its border with Croatia.

Speaking in Florence, Boldrini expressed dismay eastern European countries, which lived through dictatorship and repression, generating their own waves of refugees, who think they can resolve Europe's

current immigration crisis "with barbed wire and walls."

Italy is participating in an EU summit later Wednesday in Malta discussing ways to discourage economic migrants from coming and safer ways to send them back home.

1:30 p.m.

The European Union wants to issue documents to Africans who are refused asylum to ease their return back to countries they left or traveled through.

The controversial "laissez passer" plan has been criticized by diplomats and non-governmental organizations as being tantamount to Europe telling African countries who they should accept.

It will be discussed later Wednesday by European and African leaders at a migration summit in Malta.

In a draft of the summit action plan, obtained by The Associated Press, the leaders pledge to "enhance recognition of the EU laissez passer."

But the African Union's ambassador to the EU, Ajay Bramdeo, has told migration experts the proposed document "is unheard-of in international law."

12:45 p.m.

Denmark's prime minister says the country will tighten its immigration rules to stem a recent increase in people seeking asylum.

Unlike neighbors Germany and Sweden, Denmark has not seen dramatic numbers of migrants this year, which Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said shows his government's strict immigration
policies are working.

However, he told reporters Wednesday that further restrictions are needed after 3,600 people applied for asylum in Denmark in October.

The new measures include reducing benefits for asylum-seekers, shortening residence permits for those allowed to stay and stepping up efforts to deport those who are not.

The center-right leader says "we are not going to have the chaotic situation in Denmark that we have seen in other countries."

Denmark has received about 10,000 asylum-seekers this year while Sweden received a similar number just last week.

12:35 p.m.

Norwegian news agency NTB says 162 asylum-seekers have been evacuated after a refugee shelter in southern Norway caught on fire.

No one was injured in the blaze, which started just before 2 a.m. Wednesday in Hemsedal. NTB says the kitchen and administrative section of the facility burned to the ground.

Police said it was too early to speculate on the cause.

In neighboring Sweden, more than a dozen refugee shelters have been damaged or destroyed in recent weeks in a wave of suspected arson attacks.

Norway's security service PST has said the sharp rise in asylum-seekers could increase the threat from right-wing extremists.

11:55 a.m.

Dozens of asylum-seekers in a Czech reception center are on hunger strike to protest their detention and a possible return to their country of origin.

Media say about 44 people, mostly from Iraq, are refusing to eat in the Drahonice facility located west of Prague.

Interior Minister Milan Chovanec told Czech public radio that they started their protest after some 40 other migrants were returned from the center to another European country.

In a statement sent through Mikulas Vymetal, a Protestant priest, to the local CTK news agency, the asylum-seekers complain they've been detained too long and say they would rather die than return home.

There are currently more than 140 people in the center.

Czech authorities say hunger strikes are not rare in the migrant centers.

11:30 a.m.

Thousands of refugees and other migrants are gathered at Greece's border with Macedonia waiting to continue their journey north toward more prosperous European Union countries, as the surge

of people heading to the Greek mainland from the eastern Aegean islands continues following the end of a ferry strike last week.

About 4,000 people were waiting to cross at 6 a.m. Wednesday, with about half in a camp in the Idomeni border area and the rest in 40 buses.

Macedonian border police were allowing groups of 50 people to cross roughly every 10-15 minutes.

"My journey from Syria to Greece took 10 days and it was relatively good. I hope it continues this way until I reach Germany," said 22-year-old Yazan Alouf as he waited with friends to cross the border.

Greek police said about 6,200 people had crossed from Tuesday morning until Wednesday morning.

10:50 a.m.

Slovenia has started erecting a barbed-wire fence on the border with Croatia to prevent uncontrolled entry of migrants into the already overwhelmed Alpine state.

A convoy of army trucks carrying barbed wire arrived early Wednesday in Veliki Obrez, at the Slovenian border with Croatia.

Soldiers begun unwinding the wire and stretching it along the Slovenian side of the river Sutla that divides the two countries.

Prime Minister Miro Cerar said a day earlier that his country expects about 30,000 new migrants to reach Slovenian borders.

The government fears that if neighboring Austria restricts their flow further along their route, the people stranded in Slovenia would be too many to handle.

9:40 a.m.

Turkey's state-run agency says seven children are among the 14 migrants who drowned when their boat sank off the northern Turkish Aegean coast.

Anadolu Agency says Turkish Coast Guard divers are searching the waters for more possible victims.

The boat carrying the migrants sank off the coast of Ayvacik early on Wednesday on its way to the Greek island of Lesbos. The migrants' nationalities were not immediately known.

More than half a million migrants have crossed the Aegean Sea to the Greek islands from Turkey so far this year. Hundreds have died during the crossing.

9:20 a.m.

Turkey's state-run news agency says 14 migrants drowned when their boat sank off the Turkish northern Aegean coast of Ayvacik.

The Anadolu Agency says 27 other migrants were rescued by Turkish coast guards.

Ayvacik is a main crossing point to the Greek island of Lesbos.

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News from The Associated Press

Merkel should be run right out of her office for the damage she has brought into her nation. I completely see why the Germans are in the streets, red card her!!!

20 TEENAGERS RIOT IN LATEST MIGRANT VIOLENCE IN GERMANY

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Around 20 youths rioted in a migrant camp near the German city of Bremen on Tuesday, in the latest incident of migrant violence to hit Germany.

Local news site NWZ Online says that two large grounds of groups started fighting at a shelter for unaccompanied minors, resulting in two teenagers requiring hospital treatment.

The reason for the dispute is not yet known, but police believe it could have been sparked by a mobile phone theft.

The centre, which holds around 100 young migrants who have travelled to Germany alone, is situated next to a primary school in the neighbourhood of Borgfelder Saatland.

Nine emergency vehicles attended the incident, with police taking eleven Afghans into custody to determine their residency status.

The incident comes just one day after a brawl at another migrant centre for unaccompanied minors, which resulted in four people requiring hospital treatment.

The fight, in which a gang of Afghans and Iranians beat a group of Syrians with iron bars, broom handles, clothes hangers, happened at a centre in the city of Nuremburg.

The cause of that incident also remains unknown.

Tensions have been growing as migrant centres across Germany fill up, with interethnic and religious violence becoming a serious problem.

Breitbart London has also reported on a fight between Christian and Muslim Iranians in Bad Fallingbostel, where both sides were described by police as “heavily intoxicated”.

A total of 12 police officers were called in to calm the situation, with one migrant needing medical treatment.

Protests are continuing to grow in Germany as the influx of migrants shows no sign of abating.

Last weekend, the anti-mass migration Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party held a rallyin Berlin which saw 5,000 people march through the streets of the German capital calling for the resignation of Chancellor Angela Merkel

and the introduction of much tighter border controls.

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20 Teenagers Riot In Latest Migrant Violence In Germany

11 Youths Injured In Brawl At Migrant Centre

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Sweden sees no decline in migrants

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Stockholm - Waves of asylum seekers arriving in Sweden showed no signs of letting up Friday, a day after the country introduced temporary border controls to help stem the influx, authorities said.

Almost 24 hours after the measures took effect at midday on Thursday, the Swedish Migration Agency had registered about 1 600 bids for asylum, said spokesperson Mikael Hvinlund.

"That is on par with the levels during the past days and weeks," he told Swedish Radio.

Seeking asylum

Border controls were in place at ferry terminals in southern Sweden, where many travellers arrive from Germany and Denmark.

They were also enacted on the Oresund rail and road bridge that connects Sweden to Denmark, used by thousands of vehicles and commuters.

It was possible that many people who earlier transited to Norway or Finland were now seeking asylum in Sweden, Home Affairs Minister Anders Ygeman said.

The border controls were initially to be in place until November 21, the government said.

Following Sweden's lead, the governments of neighbouring Denmark and Norway also unveiled measures to stem migrant arrivals.

"We are introducing tougher access to Denmark so that fewer (people) come here," Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said with the unveiling of a 34-point package.

Rasmussen's centre-right minority government planned to open migration talks with other parties next week.

Proposals for the talks included pushing back the period for applying for family reunion from one to three years and tents as accommodation for single males applying for asylum.

Single men

Denmark cut welfare benefits for new asylum seekers in August in a bid to curb arrivals.

In Norway, the conservative-led government will ask parliament next week to approve changes in the asylum law to allow for the speedier return of people who lack grounds for asylum, citing large inflows
via Russia.

"The majority who cross the border are not fleeing civil war or persecution", Prime Minister Erna Solberg said.

Solberg said Syrian nationals were now outnumbered by single men from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This year more than 4 400 people have arrived via the land border Norway shares with Russia, high above the Arctic Circle.

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Sweden sees no decline in migrants | News24

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Refugee Crisis In Germany: After Paris Terror Attacks, Merkel Stands Firm On Open-Arms Policy

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced a lot of name-calling and criticism over the last week, with one German politician labeling her “a careless skier” for causing an avalanche of refugees

and another declaring “uncontrolled immigration” of refugees must stop.

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks that killed 129 people and left more than 350 injured, Merkel defended her open-arms refugee policy Monday as she continued to face scrutiny at home and abroad, Bloomberg reported.

“We owe that not only to the victims but also to security in our countries and to the refugees, a large number of whom are fleeing terrorism,” Merkel said Monday, insisting the priority should be finding those

responsible for the attacks in Paris.

Right-wing groups across Europe pointed to the fact that one of the men who officials said took part in the Paris attacks had entered Europe through Greece along with refugees.

Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker have called for countries not to conflate refugees fleeing war zones with terrorists.

Even with temperatures dropping, refugees have continued to try to reach Europe, with many fleeing conflict zones and repressive states, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

Many refugees hope to reach Western European states, such as Germany and Sweden, to seek asylum.

Germany has said it could see as many as a million refugees cross its borders by the end of the year.

The German government is wiser than to think that the two things have something to do with one another.

They won't punish Syrians for what happened in Paris,” a refugee told the German edition of the Local Monday.

Border crossings have tightened across Europe after the attacks in Paris, with the EC's Juncker announcing that refugees would encounter strict border controls.

Following the attacks in Paris, Poland’s new government said it would not accept refugees based on a quota system plan that had been agreed to in September by the 28-member European Union.

The country’s new foreign minister suggested Syrians return home and liberate their country.

“Tens of thousands of young men disembark from their rubber dinghies with iPad in hand and instead of asking for drink or food, they ask where they can charge their cell phones,” said Poland’s new Foreign

Minister Witold Waszczykowski, according to Agence France-Presse. “They can go to fight to liberate their country with our help.”

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Refugee Crisis In Germany: After Paris Terror Attacks, Merkel Stands Firm On Open-Arms Policy

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It's disgusting. All of it.

Over 900,000 migrants arrived in Germany this year, state ministry

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More than 900,000 migrants have been registered in Germany since the beginning of the year, the Bavarian Interior Ministry said on Friday.

"The number of 900,000 was surpassed in the nationwide registration system last night," a spokesman for Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.

The federal government had forecast that some 800,000 refugees would arrive in Germany this year, but senior politicians have said there could be as many as 1 million new arrivals.

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Over 900,000 migrants arrived in Germany this year, state ministry | Reuters

Unbelievable.

Well, some of this may be explained by Merkel's background. She's from East Germany, not West Germany, while born in West Germany, her family opted to migrate to East Germany and she was raised 80 miles north of East Berlin. She's from a family of Catholics, turned Lutherans, the reason the family moved to East Germany, but visits with the Dalai Lama for "private talks". She's a socialist, not a capitalist, a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. She is extremely bright in the academia state of one's affairs, a Mathematician, Physicist, and speaks fluent Russian, but a complete idiot when it comes to immigration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel

In other words, she's an apparent Lu Lu Bird.

What a shame, poor Germany, and I thought I would never say such a thing.