Saxony-Anhalt migrants weigh leaving over AfD pledge

Some migrants in Saxony-Anhalt say they are considering leaving the eastern German state as the far-right Alternative for Germany campaigns on a promised “deportation and remigration offensive” before a regional election.

Ayman Alyoussef, a Syria-born cardiologist and head physician at a clinic in Quedlinburg, said he feared that “hatred of foreigners will spread”. Alyoussef, who arrived in Germany in 2014 and is now a German citizen, said patients and colleagues had welcomed him but that he and his family sometimes faced hostility in public.

About 150 migrant-run restaurants, kiosks and barber shops in the state capital Magdeburg temporarily closed last week to protest what they warned was an increasingly xenophobic climate. The Refugee Council said many migrants had reported “experiences of racism and social exclusion” and that talk of mass deportations had increased “fear and uncertainty”.

Afghan migrant Rezwaan Talash, who works in a Magdeburg computer repair shop and volunteers in a migrant support group, said some people from Saxony-Anhalt had recently moved away because they feared the state could become unsafe for them after the election.

AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund, who wants to become state premier, has vowed to deport all foreigners without legal status “from minute one” in office. At a campaign event on Saturday, Siegmund said his party wanted to deport “people who are here illegally, who are required to leave the country”, while regular immigration based on strict criteria would not be a problem.

Mamad Mohamad, a Greens candidate and Yazidi Kurd who arrived in Germany from Syria in 1996, said the campaign had deepened “societal divisions”. He said campaigners handing out flyers near an Islamic cultural centre in Halle had faced insults and now worked in groups of three or four.

Business and health figures warned that Saxony-Anhalt already needs workers from migrant backgrounds. Conservative CDU candidate Sven Schulze said that for every two people leaving the workforce, only one enters it. Quedlinburg clinic director Matthias Voth said the hospital could not function without highly qualified foreign-born colleagues.

Alyoussef said he wanted to stay but had options because he and his family have German passports. “If I get the feeling that hatred is being spread here, then that's it, I'm done,” he said.