An 18-year-old female Ukrainian refugee was reportedly raped in a migrant accommodation centre in the German city of Düsseldorf by men of Nigerian and Iraqi heritage.
The alleged rape took place at a hotel ship, the Oscar Wilde, which has been used as an accommodation centre for refugees in Düsseldorf who have fled from the conflict in Ukraine.
The two men suspected of rape, a 37-year-old from Nigeria and a 26-year-old from Iraq, are said to have taken turns sexually abusing the 18-year-old young woman. Both men are Ukrainian passport holders, but the exact circumstances around their citizenship remains unclear, Bild reports.
There is also no indication yet why the men were allowed to leave Ukraine as refugees, given widespread reports that fighting-age men are being prevented from fleeing so they can contribute to the defence of the nation.
The public prosecutor’s office in Düsseldorf confirmed that the two men had been arrested and were in police custody as of Monday and police have opened an investigation into the incident.
Head of the Federal Police Union Heiko Teggatz reacted to the case saying, “Politicians should now do everything in their power to ensure that such terrible rape cases, as on the hotel boat in Düsseldorf, do not accumulate. Harsh and quick punishment with subsequent deportation is the only language that such perpetrators understand.”
According to Bild, sources within the German police have claimed to have seen several cases in which migrants from places like Africa have been spotted among Ukrainian refugees.
In some cases, Africans and others who have been studying at universities in Ukraine have fled the country following the Russian invasion, with some claiming to be victims of discrimination at the Ukrainian border with European Union member states.
Others, such as French populist Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Nicholas Bay, a vice-president of Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest! party alleged that African migrants and others were exploiting the Ukrainian war as a way to enter France.
“[T]oday a third of the refugees who pass through Ukraine who do not come from Ukraine, but… come from sub-Saharan Africa in particular… [they] use this new migratory route to come to Europe,” Bay said.
NGOs and other groups have also warned that Ukrainian women and children, who make up the majority of those fleeing the Ukrainian conflict, are vulnerable to people traffickers and those looking to exploit them.
Shirin Tinnesand, refugee and migration coordinator at the NGO Wadi, stated that Ukrainians ” are at risk of being exposed to human trafficking, prostitution, organ donation. Only imagination sets the limits.”