European Migrant Crisis: Refugee Truck attack in Berlin

An incident occurred near Kurfürstendamm, the main shopping street in West Berlin that would once again heighten the refugee tensions in Germany. A truck plowed into the Christmas market killing 12 people and injured 50 more and brought back the memories of Nice France when a similar attack killed 86 people, one of the worst in the history of France.

The driver of the truck fled the scene but was later arrested and media reports suggest that he is either from Afghanistan or Pakistan and entered Germany as a refugee in February this year. Germany has been in a state of high alert after two terror attacks in Bavaria carried out by refugees who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel changed her rhetoric and called for a burka ban in Germany. In 2015, she was heavily promoting an open-door policy that saw migrant arriving in Germany in millions. Last year alone, more than a million refugees from war-torn regions of Syria, Middle East, and North Africa arrived in Germany, which led to ethnic and religious tensions in the country as the most of those arrived are predominantly Muslim in faith, while Germany is largely a Christian dominated society.

Angela Merkel chancellorship is threatened in the next election scheduled in 2017 by the rise of anti-immigrant right-wing, Alternate for Germany (AfD) Party. She herself acknowledged that her bid for reelection next year is the toughest she ever faced.