Half of refugees at German camp test Covid-19 positive

Sallie Anderson

Almost half of the approximately 600 people at a refugee camp in Germany have actually checked positive for Covid-19, however are being required to share centers with everybody else.

EUobserver was first signaled when a confidential citizen painted a bleak image inside Ellwangen camp in Baden-Wurtenburg, a state in southern Germany.

  • The canteen at Ellwangen (Picture: Confidential).

“Everyone is scared to eat something because of crowds and we don’t know who has coronavirus or not,” stated the citizen, who did not divulge his name, in an e-mail sent out over the weekend.

Some 250 people have the illness, a huge boost from around 7 simply a week earlier, with more cases of infections anticipated.

District authorities at Ostalbkrei, where Ellwangen lies, announced they will ultimately retest everybody “in order to determine which persons have become additionally infected.”

The whole camp has actually been put in lockdown considering that the start of April, with cops safeguarding the entryway to ensure nobody goes into or leaves.

Seán McGinley, a manager at the Baden-Wurtenburg Refugee Council, stated that the authorities dealing with of Ellwangen camp is a dish for catastrophe.

“They are seeing these people as a kind of threat and a danger, it iseems to be an acceptable strategy to park the police outside and make sure nobody comes in and nobody comes out,” he informed EUobserver on Wednesday (15 April).

He mentioned that the Refugee Council had actually required an evacuation of the camp some 3 weeks earlier, a proposition that was overlooked by authorities.

“It is about half the people who there in total, just short of 600 people who are in there at the moment,” he stated, when inquired about the infection numbers.

According to German media reports, Ellwangen has 587 homeowners, of which around half are male. The rest are women and households taking a trip alone, and originate from locations like Nigeria, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

It is likewise created as a common space and residency for people who first show up in Germany looking for international defense. It suggests they share restrooms, spaces, toilets and showers. They are not permitted to prepare and should get their food in a canteen.

“They are not even allowed to boil a kettle to make coffee in their own rooms,” stated McGinley.

The whole center was put in lockdown on 5 April after a 32- years of age guy from Ghana first checkedpositive

.

The number of infections have actually just considering that increased as police have actually been dispatched to enforce a lockdown. A single wi-fi hotspot inside the camp was likewise just recently turned off, positioning homeowners in a near overall info blackout.

Since of its size it is of little usage,

McGinley stated authorities had actually leased a center able to quarantine some 30 people however.

“It is not going to be a solution where you have 250 people who are infected,” he mentioned.

Comparable stories of refugees in lockdown amidst an infection break out are being reported somewhere else in Germany.

Amongst them is the Halberstadt refugee centre in Sachsen-Anhalt, in quarantine considering that 27 March.

Some 100 of the 800 homeowners at the centre went on cravings strike in demonstration offered the break out, the absence of health, and absence of space to keep everybody at a safe range.

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