Covid risks take heavy toll on migrants

Berlin, March 21: Syrian refugee Mahmoud Ajlouni was due to pick up his new German residency permit last week but found the door firmly shut at the processing office in Berlin.

“I had an appointment,” he said, adding he has “no idea” when he’ll be able to replace the flimsy sheet of paper that is his only official identification.

For Ajlouni, the uncertainty could last weeks if not months as Germany has suspended refugee intake programmes or asylum seeker hearings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Beyond Germany, fears are also growing about the fate of migrants and refugees in the bloc as Europe takes increasingly stringent measures to fight contagion.

With Europe now the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union has slammed shut its external borders to halt the spread of Covid-19.

Countries like France, Spain and Italy have also imposed lockdowns on their populations to restrict movements and halt the spread of the virus.

Migrants and asylum seekers have become one of the most vulnerable groups hard hit by the crisis as public services that usually tend to the group are wound down.

Aid groups have also warned that already poor conditions in camps including in Greece could worsen, while tense scenes have already erupted in refugee accomodations in Germany.

In Suhl, eastern Germany, 200 police were called in after brawls broke out in a refugee home where 533 people were quarantined. Twenty-two were sent for confinement in a former juvenile prison.

The quarantines had been ordered after several cases of Covid-19 were detected among in Germany.

Meanwhile people are only allowed to claim asylum at present if they can show a negative test for Covid-19 or after submitting to 14 days of quarantine. Volunteers and nongovernment organisations fear that locked up in close quarters, with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities, the confinement will do little to slow the virus' spread.

“Kids are still running around in the corridors,” said Sophia, a volunteer working especially with Afghan families in a Berlin home. refugees