The German city of Cottbus, Brandenburg has forced a 15-year-old Syrian asylum seeker and his father to leave town and never return after he pulled a knife on a local couple last week.
The eviction is the first time the local government has ordered an asylum seeker to move elsewhere and they say he has been a repeat offender since moving to the area.
Conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) local politician Thomas Bergner commented on the order saying: “The integration of the adolescent is said to have failed.”
Bergner added that the local government will be working even more in-depth with police in the future to address other known troublemakers who could receive the same order.
The order to leave the city comes after the 15-year-old and two other Syrian teen asylum seekers randomly attacked a man and woman at the Blechen-Carré shopping centre in Cottbus. The man was harassed by the trio and after the 15-year-old pulled out a knife, another German man intervened, pushing back the knife-wielding migrant and scaring the teens away.
The Interior Ministry of the region of Brandenburg confirmed Friday that Cottbus would no longer be taking in any new asylum seekers. The announcement came after another violent incident between two teen Syrian asylum seekers and a German teen who they slashed in the face with a knife earlier this week.
The incidents are not the first time Cottbus has had problems with asylum seekers. In March 2017, an asylum seeker from Syria was arrested in connection with the murder of an 82-year-old woman leading to Cottbus mayor Holger Kelch pleading for calm.
The rise in violent incidents involving migrants has led to some backlash from members of the far-right in the city. In January of 2017, masked German alleged neo-Nazis marched with torches shouting slogans against the presence of North African migrants.