After a decline seen at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of refugees is on the rise again. The city of Berlin had to reopen an emergency shelter, barely two years after having closed it, on the site of the former Tempelhof airport, emblematic place of the 2015 migration crisis. in haste containers to recreate this reception center in the middle of winter – four times smaller than the one Berliners experienced at the height of the migration crisis – with 250 places to accommodate the latest arrivals.
“I arrived in Germany on January 31”, explains Ibrahima. He is one of the first 90 occupants of the center. This 22-year-old Guinean fled the military coup in the capital Conakry in September. The year 2021, a little more than in previous years, has seen many African countries experience situations of tension which are pushing people to flee and for some to seek refuge in Europe. France and Germany occupy the top of the European ranking as destination countries.
Thrown like thousands of others on the roads of exile, Ibrahima recounts the nights spent outside in Algeria, in Morocco. Ditto in Europe, in Spain then in France. “The day I arrived, they told me if you don’t have a family you will spend the night outside”, explains I young Guinean. A similar experience for Eric, from Burkina Faso: “In France, I even saw people sleeping in tents. I don’t want to leave misery, ask for asylum and sleep outside.”
In Berlin, he sleeps warm and dry in a bungalow equipped with a shower and a toilet, which he shares with three other refugees. Each small structure has two bedrooms and in each of them there is a table, two chairs, two beds and two closets. “These are temporary accommodations which don’t look very nice but it’s like small apartmentsexplains Monika Hebbinghaus, of the Berlin office for refugees. At the moment, we can’t offer them anything better, 98% of our accommodations are occupied.”
“A lot of people are looking to Berlin and it’s piling up. We still need more refugee accommodationcontinues Monika Hebbinghaus. In 2021, we had 13,000 refugees in Berlin.” Twice as many as in 2020 or 2019. Even if not everyone will be entitled to protection, Berlin must prepare to welcome more than the current 21,000 refugees. The German capital is constantly looking for new spaces.