In September, the east German state became the first to vote for anti-immigrant party the AfD. For the thousands of Muslim asylum seekers living there, safety is an ever-growing concern.
Early one morning in February, Mohammed was woken by a neighbour banging loudly on his door. A bin outside the old farm building where he and two other refugee families live in small apartments had been set on fire. The flames had already spread to a nearby tree and were encroaching on his building’s timber roof.
As he stood in the cold, dark country lane in Thuringia, eastern Germany, with his three children waiting for the emergency services to arrive, the 43-year-old single father watched the flames threatening his home in disbelief, wondering if they had been started by the same group of young men he’d seen throwing rocks and bottles at his home a few weeks earlier. “I couldn’t accept that people could do this to us,” he said. “We always kept our heads down, we never started trouble with anyone.”
Mohammed — whose surname and exact location we’ve withheld for his security — arrived in Germany from Syria three years ago, fleeing the war there. Germany’s central asylum system distributes new arrivals equally across the country. Mohammed’s family were sent to dormitory accommodation in Thuringia and told they would be housed in the state until the courts had processed their asylum claim. They had been excited to move to their own apartment after two years sharing accommodation with hundreds of others, until the attacks began six months later.
It started with the stones and bottles, then their bikes and mail were stolen and a firework was put through the letterbox. Mohammed’s teenage children were anxious and sleeping badly. “They were begging me to move somewhere else, but I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “All we could do was wait.” Nine months later, the family is still waiting — along with 67,820 other registered asylum seekers in Thuringia — in an increasingly hostile limbo.
Thuringia has provided the far right with its biggest election success anywhere in Germany since the second world war. On 1 September, the anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) came top in state elections with 32% of the vote — its biggest ever vote share. Under Germany’s federal system, state governments have significant lawmaking powers in education, culture and social welfare. The Thuringian branch of the AfD is considered one of the most extreme in Germany. Its spokesperson Björn Höcke has been fined twice for using Nazi slogans in speeches.
In 2023, 8,821 asylum claims were lodged in Thuringia — an increase of 5,837 from 2022 but still well below the peak of 16,044 in 2016. Most asylum seekers there live in secluded camps or shared accommodation in small villages and towns. Mohammed has been housed on a leafy road that until recently had no streetlights, on the outskirts of a small town. These remote spots can feel vulnerable, and often are. Ezra, an organisation that offers counselling for victims of far-right violence, documented violent racism in Thuringia. A spike in attacks began in 2015 with the arrival of the first refugees, reaching 186 in 2023. Last year, the number of recorded incidents dropped to 147, still higher than the annual average of 117, but with a particular increase in attacks on shared refugee accommodation.
Adam Alazawe, who arrived in Germany from Syria in 2016 and now works with asylum organisations including the Thuringia Refugee Council, believes the state has particular challenges when it comes to safeguarding asylum seekers. A rural region of forests and remote villages, Thuringia is one of the poorest areas of Germany. Its population has plummeted in recent decades as people left to find work.
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