German Police Suspect Arson in Destruction of Refugee Shelters
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Version 0 of 1. BERLIN — The German police suspect that arsonists, possibly with a far-right motive, were behind a series of fires that destroyed three buildings in a village near Nuremberg that had been slated to open their doors to several dozen refugees in the coming weeks, officials said Friday. One of the buildings, which had been renovated in recent months to accommodate up to 80 refugees, was sprayed with swastikas and an anti-immigrant slogan, stirring memories of a wave of attacks against foreigners by neo-Nazis across Germany in the early 1990s. The fires in the village, Vorra, in southern Germany, come as the country is grappling with a surge of refugees from Syria and elsewhere, and with the rise of a populist movement in Dresden that has attracted thousands to weekly protests decrying what it views as the Islamization of the West. Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the protests and other such crimes “in the strongest possible terms,” a spokeswoman, Christiane Wirtz, said on Friday. More than 155,400 people have applied for asylum in Germany in 2014, according to government statistics, more than double the number from last year. |