A village in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has revolted and successfully pushed back plans by local authorities to house 450 asylum seekers in a former monastery building. According to the publication Junge Freiheit, there were scenes of jubilation at a town hall meeting on Monday, July 31st, in Oeventrop, when the owner of the building, Christoph Kraas, announced that, without the support of the community, he would not lease the monastery to the local government for accommodating the migrants. Kraas, also a resident of the village, would have gained several million euros in rent per year, but must now pass up the opportunity.
Displeasure with the plans was such that the gym used for the meeting was fully packed with 750 attendees, whilst 150 people had to watch the ongoing events on a TV screen outside. Local government representatives tried to persuade the locals of the necessity of establishing a refugee centre, but got booed by the angry crowd. The villagers then voiced their fears that crimes, such as sexual assaults, would be committed by the migrants, pointing out that neighbouring towns had suffered similar fates.
Indeed, Soest, a town of around 50,000 inhabitants, has seen a rise in crime since 600 asylum seekers were housed in an office building a few weeks ago. Locals complain that, apart from disturbing the peace with their loud phone calls and filling the streets with garbage, some of the migrants consume drugs and there have also been reports of break-ins. Another 1,200 migrants had previously been resettled in Soest, with Mayor Eckhard Ruthemeyer complaining to the state government in Düsseldorf that the high number of migrants resulted in more crimes being committed, negatively affecting the image of the town.
Local authorities in Arnsberg, the town to which Oeventrop officially belongs, will be looking for a new building to rent. The number of asylum seekers has once again surged in Europe, with Germany granting by far the largest number of asylum seekers protection status in 2022, issuing almost 160,000 positive decisions. A lot of migrants are redistributed in North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state, and similarly to Oeventrop, many communities are outraged about this.
