Germany sends refugees back to Austria

International reports claim that Germany has been sending an increasing number of refugees back to Austria every day since the beginning of the month.

Austrian police have been reported saying that many of the refugees had no valid documents, and others did not wish to apply for asylum in Germany but preferred to do so in other countries, notably in Scandinavia. However, last week neighbouring Sweden, sought to stem the flow by imposing controls on travellers from Denmark, which in turn imposed controls from the German border.

The AFP news agency reports that daily numbers of refugees being turned back has risen from 60 in December to 200 since the start of the year.

The Austrian police added that most of those being sent back to Austria are not Syrians, who usually get asylum, but that they are mostly refugees from Afghanistan as well as Morocco and Algeria.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been put under mounting pressure and scrutiny ever since the much-reported attacks on women took place in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, with over 500 criminal complaints being filed so far, and 40% alleging sexual assault, according to reports.

An official report has said that the men suspected of attacking women in central Cologne on New Year's Eve were "almost exclusively" from a migration background, mainly North African and Arab, with nineteen people currently under investigation by state police in relation to the attacks. The BBC reports that the 19 suspects include 14 men from Morocco and Algeria and 10 asylum seekers; nine of whom arrived in Germany after September 2015, and the other nine are possibly in Germany illegally.