A family of asylum seekers set for deportation in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, took several people hostage during an attempt to deport them.
On Thursday at 3:30 am, two police officers along with a doctor and an employee of the German immigration office visited a migrant camp to process the deportation of a family from Azerbaijan. The scene quickly turned into a hostage situation after one of the family members stole a policeman’s firearm, Die Welt reports.
The family, which consisted of two parents with their two daughters and an unnamed visitor, barricaded themselves in their accommodation along with the immigration office employee and a security guard who works at the migrant camp.
One of the members of the family is said to have shot the police firearm several times during the incident, although no one was injured.
The police called for an armed response unit, but the failed asylum seekers gave up their hostages before the special branch officers had an opportunity to intervene.
When police entered the apartment, they found the mother had stabbed herself and arrested the father, one of the daughters, and the unnamed visitor. The woman was taken to hospital for treatment.
The case is just the latest headache for the German government in regards to deportations of failed asylum seekers.
In 2016, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has yet to form a coalition government since September’s national election, promised a wave of deportations of at least 100,000 failed asylum seekers.
The number of actual deportations has been much lower due to a lack of cooperation from left-wing regional governments, protests by left-wing activist groups, and migrants attempting to flee.
In one case, a migrant escaped a detention centre next to Hamburg airport and caused both the delay of flights leaving the airport and causing others to be diverted as some feared he had run onto the runway.
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