East Germans evade mines

Press, 16 August 1984, Page 6

East Germans evade mines

NZPA-AP Munich An East German couple have defied Communist mines and barbed wire and escaped safely to West Germany, the Bavarian border police said. The police said the East Germans, a woman, aged 18, and a man, aged 21, scaled a 3m-high steel fence topped with barbed wire and dodged through a mine field on the Communist side of the border in the northern Bavarian county of Rhoen-Grabfeld.

Their escape brought to 16 the number of East Europeans who have fled safely across East German and Czechoslovak borders in the first part of August West German authorities routinely withhold the iden-

tities of refugees and details of their escapes to protect family members still living in the East and to prevent the Communist authorities from stepping up security where escapes occur. A Western watchdog agency said that 2725 East Germans escaped to’ West Germany in the first six months of this year, a 150 per cent rise over the same period last year. Of the 2725, at least 86 “risked life and limb” to get across the heavily fortified border, according to Dr Rainer Hildebrandt, director of the working group, August 13, a private, Rightleaning organisation based in West Berlin which monitors human rights in East Germany.