Refugee children in Germany are being radicalised in mosques, joining gangs and roaming the streets with knives from as young as 11, a leading youth charity has warned.
The Christian organisation “Die Arche” (The Ark) has 33 centres throughout Germany and supports more than 7,000 children and young people from refugee and socially disadvantaged families.
In a shocking interview with Bild newspaper, spokesman Wolfgang Büscher, who has worked for the NGO for 20 years, said the continuing flow of refugees means Germany is now on the brink of collapse.
“Our system has collapsed. We are on the brink of the abyss. The main reason is the continuing influx of refugees,” he said. “I call for a freeze on refugee admissions, otherwise it would no longer be possible to provide assistance.”
Meanwhile, a social worker at the organisation, named Josi, warned: “Support systems no longer work. Integration has failed. We can’t do everything.”
The 32-year-old added: “Politicians talk and talk and turn a blind eye to the problems. This will escalate and there will be a big explosion.”
A file picture shows migrants boarding a German Federal Police vehicle near Forst in eastern Germany after a patrol on the border with Poland.
Germany is struggling to cope with the current large influx of migrants, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey. File image shows people queuing at a reception centre last year
Büscher’s comments come days after German authorities banned an Islamic organisation in Hamburg. Pictured: Police secure the grounds of a mosque run by the Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg (IZH) group
Büscher added that among the young refugees his charity helps, particularly those of Arab origin are increasingly “criminalised and radicalised”.
“All the problems that refugee policy automatically brings with it, but that no one really wants to acknowledge, are concentrated here,” he said.
“Muslim teenagers in particular are a clear example of what is wrong with integration. There are already eleven-year-old children here walking around armed with knives.”
According to him, many young people are “lost” in the hands of gangs who recruit and lure them by saying: “Come with us if you don’t like the Germans. You’re better off with us.”
“Many” of the young people who come to the Ark centres attend mosques where radical Islam is preached, Büscher said, adding that they refer to moderate places of worship as “cowardly mosques”.
She added that of the 1,500 young people cared for at Berlin Ark, there are almost no Muslim girls over the age of 13, as “they have to stay at home.”
‘I was told that parents are afraid that our Western values might be passed on to girls.
“Then they wouldn’t be able to come and see us anymore. We can’t reach those families anymore. They live in a bubble, in a different system,” she said.
He added that staff had informed him about young women being forced into marriage.
This file picture shows a group of refugees standing next to clothes drying on the grounds of the arrival centre at the initial reception centre in the eastern German state of Brandenburg.
This file picture shows a refugee entering the arrival centre of the initial reception centre of the eastern German state of Brandenburg in Eisenhuettenstadt.
She added that these children often come from “hotspot” schools, where there are even classes with a proportion of 95 percent immigrants.
More than 350,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year, the highest number since 2016.
Opposition leaders said the stark figures showed the government was failing to tackle what they called a “migration crisis.”
Around one in five (18 percent) of Germany’s population are migrants, making the country the main destination for migrants in Europe.
Büscher’s comments come days after German authorities banned an Islamic organisation in Hamburg and its subsidiary organisations for pursuing radical Islamist goals.
The Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH) was searched, leading to the group being banned and four mosques across the country being closed.
The Interior Ministry accused the IZH of promoting anti-Semitism and the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is also banned in Germany and classified as a terrorist organisation by the European Union.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the government banned the Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg because it “promotes a totalitarian, extremist and Islamist ideology in Germany.”
Scenes of Bavarian police and security forces raiding the Islamic Association Bayern in the Pasing district of Munich, Germany, as part of the federal ban that includes the IZH
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement: ‘Today we have banned the Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, which promotes a totalitarian, extremist and Islamist ideology in Germany.
“This Islamist ideology is opposed to human dignity, women’s rights, an independent judiciary and our democratic government.”
He said he wanted to make it clear that “the ban does not apply at all to the peaceful practice of the Shiite religion.”
A 2020 report on Islamic life in Germany stated that there were approximately 5.5 million Muslims in the country’s 83 million inhabitants.
