Merkel told: Take back control of Germany’s borders

ANGELA Merkel was yesterday ordered by her own MPs to take back control of Germany’s borders following the series of street attacks linked to refugees.

The Chancellor’s home affairs spokesman, Stephen Mayer, said Germany needed to ‘regain sovereignty’ and admitted the country had failed to control who was coming in. Mrs Merkel has faced accusations from rivals that she has ‘blood on her hands’ after she allowed more than a million refugees into the country last year.

But yesterday the criticism came from within her own government. Mr Mayer said there had not been proper checks on those crossing Germany’s borders during the peak of the crisis.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘The tremendous flood of refugees, especially in the second half of last year, certainly was a big challenge especially for our authorities so we were not able to register and control all the migrants who crossed the German border. Now we have to regain sovereignty. There is a lot of room for improvement.’

Mr Mayer is an MP in Bavaria, which has been the frontline of the crisis because the region includes part of Germany’s southern border. He added: ‘We have hints that there are IS and Daesh fighters among the refugees. We have to control everybody who crosses the German-Austrian border, we have to improve. This is a tremendous challenge.’

Interior minister Thomas De Maiziere appealed for Germans to remain calm, but admitted further attacks could not be ruled out.