Cologne Attacks Put Dent in North African Migration to Germany

The number of refugees, arriving in Germany from North African nations has significantly decreased since the New Year's Eve sex attacks across the country, with the most notorious series of incidents occurring in the German city of Cologne, local media reported Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On New Year's Eve, hundreds of women in Cologne and in many other German cities were robbed and sexually assaulted by groups of aggressive men, believed to be mostly of Arab and North African origin.

In January, the German authorities registered some 3,400 arrivals of North Africans to the country, while in February and in March only 599 and 480 arrivals, respectively, were recorded, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported, citing Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) data.

The newspaper reported that the decline could be explained by Berlin's plans to classify Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as safe countries of origin that would deprive residents of these states of an automatic right to apply for asylum in Germany.

European countries are currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people leaving conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa to seek asylum in Europe. Most of the refugees are looking to apply for asylum in wealthier EU states such as Sweden and Germany.