Refugees applying for asylum in Germany fear the government is failing to shield them from coronavirus as infections at one crowded reception centre have risen sharply in recent days.
Confirmed cases of coronavirus at a facility in the south-western town of Ellwangen where refugees are accommodated while their asylum applications are processed had increased from seven to 251 in five days, authorities confirmed on Tuesday.
None of the residents at the centre, which holds 606 people from 26 nations including China, Ghana and Syria, are currently believed to be in a critical condition, though one person has been transferred to a nearby hospital.
Even though the Ellwangen centre has been under lockdown since 5 April and authorities say they have tested new arrivals for Covid-19 since early March, residents complain crowded conditions, shared facilities and a lack of protective equipment and disinfectant makes it impossible to avoid contact with people already infected with the virus.
“We stayed in the same building and flat as people who had been tested positive for two days,” one of the residents at Ellwangen said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We used the same kitchens and had meals with them. Because of this neglect, we will also get corona.”
A report published on the website of the refugees4refugees network alleged that “no special hygiene measures are noticeable” inside the centre. Disinfectant dispensers at the entrance of the canteen were not regularly replenished and protective masks were supplied mainly to protect staff, said the report, which Refugee4Refugees said drew on three separate individuals’ accounts from inside the centre.
Sources inside the Ellwangen reception centre said residents who had tested positive ate at the same canteen as those who tested negative until Monday. Photos from inside the canteen taken on Monday, seen by the Guardian, show people standing in tightly-packed queues, with only some residents wearing facial masks.
In response to the allegations, a spokesperson for the region council in Stuttgart, which runs the Ellwangen centre, said an isolated quarantine area was set up on 6 April, that masks were handed out to all people at the facility and that disinfectants were “freely accessible”.
While it was “not possible” to provide separate showers or toilets at a communal facility, steps had been taken to comply with hygiene standards set by the health authorities. Residents at Ellwangen say toilets and baths are typically shared between 50 to 80 people.
The refugee council for the state of Baden-Württemberg expressed its concern on Wednesday about reports from inside the Ellwangen facility and called on states across Germany to reduce cramped conditions at migrant centres.
“In spite of the prevailing rhetoric that says the whole society has to pull together to contain the pandemic, the refugee council sees in authorities’ actions signs that refugees are excluded from this collective,” the organisation said in a statement on Wednesday.
Advocacy groups have welcomed initiatives such as those in Freiburg, where 30 refugees were moved from a reception centre to hotels or hostels that had rooms standing empty during the current lockdown.
The Ellwangen facility is one of a number of refugee shelters in Germany reporting fears about coronavirus outbreaks.
Residents at a refugee centre in Saxony-Anhalt last week went on a hunger strike to protest against a lack of disinfectants.
At the end of March, police shut down a protest by residents of a refugee shelter in the northern city of Bremen, citing a ban on large gatherings while social distancing measures are in place. The residents had protested against cramped conditions at the centre that they said were making social distancing impossible.