German Chancellor Angela Merkel has narrowly avoided losing her position over a dispute with her own party colleagues regarding her open borders policy CNN reports.
The crisis has been brewing for some time as tensions between Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union party and its Bavarian counter-part Christian Social Union, over Merkel’s migration policy which has seen around 1.8 million mostly Muslim migrants settle in the country since 2015.
Since that fateful decision Germany has seen a significant rise in anti-social behaviour and violent crime, particularly crimes of a violent and sexual against women and children.
The rape and murder of 14-year-old Susanna Feldman by an Iraqi refugee brought the crisis to a head as Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who oversaw the Iraqi migrant’s extradition back to Germany after he fled back to his homeland, threatened to bring down Merkel’s weak coalition if a new stricter approach to migration was not undertaken, according to Reuters.
Now migrants attempting to enter Germany illegally will instead be returned to the first safe country they had registered in.