Amid the deepening European migrant and refugee crisis, violence across Germany is spreading as frustrations reach boiling point in already overcrowded asylum centers.
Violence among migrants and refugees has been reported in Dresden and Leipzig, as well as other centers including Ellwangen in Baden-Württemberg, Suhl in Thuringia, Bramsche in Lower Saxony, Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate and Heidenau in Saxony.
Police in North Rhine-Westphalia have been called to nearly 1,000 incidents in August alone, prompting Rainer Wendt, the head of DPolG, Germany's second-largest police union, to say officers are "facing the greatest challenge in post war history."
Many are now calling on migrants and refugees to be separated according to their religion, with interior minister Thomas de Maizière calling the behavior "unacceptable".
Anti-Refugee Demonstrations
The violence comes amid growing protests in Germany against the mass immigration, which is expected to reach a million people by the end of the year. 2,500 people gathered in Sebnitz in the east of Saxony, bordering the Czech Republic, to form a "living border" in a protest organized by the Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) movement, which is strongest in the Saxon capital, Dresden.
In the state of Thuringia, there has been a spate of arson attacks on hostels housing refugees. An accommodations center in the Gotha district was set on fire as was a gym that was due to take in refugees. Other fires have been reported in other states, including Eichsfeld in Lower Saxony, and Xanten in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The unrest continues as the latest opinion poll for public broadcaster ARD shows 51 percent of people saying they were "afraid" because of the influx of refugees, compared with 38 percent three weeks ago.