A 'new Berlin wall' built in Munich against refugees

In a bid to segregate migrants from German society, Germany builds a wall separating residents in a Munich neighborhood from a planned refugee hostel. The 4-meter-high wall that runs 100 meters through the neighborhood of Neuperlach is nearing completion. The new wall in Munich, will be higher than the Berlin Wall, which was erected in Berlin from 1961 to 1989, reveals growing anti-humanitarian attitudes towards refugees in the country.

City officials agreed to erect the wall several months ago as a concession to seven local plaintiffs who launched a legal bid to stop the construction of the refugee accommodation in early 2014. The video of the wall, taken by a drone, was uploaded on Friday by Guido Bucholtz, an independent politician who opposed its construction. He also distributed the footage to several local newspapers, prompting the video to be circulated more widely on Monday. "How can it be that you build a wall between residents and refugees with the meager justification of noise mitigation?" Bucholtz told DPA news agency. "This is a signal, you isolate the refugees because you don't want them around," he said. "Those who lock others out are locking themselves in," said Monika Steinhauser, the head of Munich's refugee council.

The German community has been polarized by the influx of some 890,000 asylum seekers last year with another 213,000 applying in the first nine months of 2016. Although fewer migrants have entered the country in 2016, parties on the far right have called for an immigration cap. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has capitalized on the widespread discontent about the arrival of the large number of migrants, which it argues resulted from German Chancellor Merkel's promise of sanctuary to Syrian refugees.