Refugees worry Bonn Govt

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 6

Refugees worry Bonn Govt

NZPA-Reuter Bonn

West Germany said yesterday that it was unable to halt an unmanageable influx of Third World refugees, which it called a source of crime and a potential terrorist threat. The Interior Minister, Dr Friedrich Zimmermann, told a news conference that West Germany had become the main target country for refugees streaming into Europe and that the figure was getting out of hand.

He said Bonn was urgently seeking new ways to deal with the problem, including the possibility of changing the Constitution to limit an unrestricted right to political asylum. “The Federal Republic at present possesses no adequate instrument to

deal with large influxes of people seeking asylum,” Dr Zimmermann said.

The refugees had not only swamped reception centres but posed an increasing threat to law and order, he said.

The crime rate among Ghanaians was eight times higher than among foreigners as a whole and that there was a lot of drugs offending among Arabs, Turks, and Pakistanis.

“There is very great concern about a potential but incalculable terrorist threat, which could be present among travellers from India, but also from Arab countries,” he said. Dr Zimmermann said the cost to Bonn of sheltering the refugees this year would exceed 2.7 billion marks.