Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Germany on Sunday to demand that the government take in more migrants following the fire that destroyed the Moria migrant camp in Greece.
In Berlin, around 5,000 pro-migrant activists staged a mass gathering, holding signs saying “we have space” and “leave no one behind”, and demanding that the Germann government take more refugees. Similar protests were recorded in the German cities of Munich, Leipzig, and Cologne as well as a protest in Paris, France.
Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that her government will take in 1,500 of the estimated 13,000 displaced migrants from the Moria camp, which burned to the ground, in a fire believed to have been started by a group of migrant arsonists.
The left-wing protesters were not satisfied by this pledge, however, and demanded that Germany take in more migrants, calling on increased federal action as opposed to proposals floated which would see individual German states take in additional migrants, according to DW.
Refugee rights activist Tima Kurdi called on Germans to call upon their government to accept more migrants, saying: “I decided to speak and explain myself in the name of all those who can’t do it themselves… If I can’t save my own family, we can save others.”
“We can’t close our eyes and turn our backs,” she added.
An activist for the pro-migrant NGO Seebrücke (Sea Bridge), Sonya Bobrik said that there is “more than enough room in Germany” for more migrants to come in.
Despite the outpouring of support from leftist activist groups, Germans as a whole are concerned that the influx of migrants from the Moria camp in Greece could spark a new flood of migrants into the country.
A poll conducted by German broadcaster ZDF found that 62 per cent of Germans believe that another mass wave of migrants will descend upon the country should the government take in a large number of the Moria migrants.
In August, Chancellor Merkel said that she would “make essentially the same decisions” when questioned if she regretted the decision to allow approximately one million migrants into the EU during the European Migrant Crisis of 2015.
As a result of her open borders policies, the demographics of Germany have radically shifted, with some 26 per cent of people in Germany, or 21.2 million people, now classified as having a “migrant background”, meaning that they are either migrants themselves or had at least one parent who was foreign-born.
By 2040, it is expected that over one-third of the population of Germany will have foreign backgrounds, with major cities expected to have as much as 70 per cent migrant background populations.
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