Over half of Germans are afraid of lawless no-go areas where even police can't intervene and work safely, a poll released by the German newspaper Bild on Sunday has shown.
Some 51 percent of respondents are confident that unsafe "no-go" zones is a real phenomenon in Germany, while 41 percent believe that such areas do not exist.
About 77 percent stated that they would want local police to increase their efforts in dealing with organized crime.
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According to the data by the Federal Criminal Police (BKA), the migrants are less likely to be involved in criminal activities than Germans. For instance only, 38 percent out of some 150,000 assaulters in 2016 were foreigners, BKA said.
However, a number of German politicians are confident that no-go areas in the country are a real problem.
For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recognized the existence of no-go zones in the country, although she did not say exactly where these areas are located.
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Germany's new Health Minister Jens Spahn also noted that there are such "neighborhoods in Essen, Duisburg and Berlin where you get the impression that the state is no longer willing or able to enforce the law there."
The topic is being hotly debated within the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In an interview with Sputnik, Anton Friesen, a Bundestag MP from the AfD party, called these areas "strongholds of the Islamists" where "German laws do not work."
A migration crisis has hit European countries over the last few years, with many of them struggling to cope with the growing influx of migrants. Mass migration from Syria, Iraq and Africa has changed life in Europe and is considered one of the main factors triggering the emergence of isolated and unsafe enclaves in European cities.
