German Police 'Unable' to Confirm Links Between Refugee Camps and Rapes

A group of German activists called XY Einzelfall used media and police reports to create a map of crimes across Germany using Google Maps and then compared it with another map showing the location of Germany's asylum reception centers.

The two maps demonstrated a link between the presence of a refugee camp and the proportion of sex crimes in its vicinity.

"At first glance, there seems to be indeed a certain correlation: crimes are being committed in the locations where refugees are placed. However, it remains to be seen how all of this can be transferred to the realities of crime statistics. To begin with, German police stressed that here we are talking about a private project, which we don't have any detailed information about. Who is behind this project, also remains unknown. This information is distributed by private blogs and online platforms," a police representative told Sputnik Germany.

According to official data, about one million refugees arrived in Germany in 2015 alone, with the growing influx of migrants leading to concerns about increased crime rates. Police statistics show that in 2015 there were 6.33 million recorded crimes in Germany, a 4.1 percent increase compared to 2014.

The group's activists earlier told Sputnik Germany that they seek to show how the open-door policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel affected domestic security and resulted in an increase of crime rates in the country.

"We aren't trying to tell anybody what to do. We just want people to be alert to the huge danger around them," the activists told Sputnik.

The police statistics show a staggering 158.3 percent increase in the number of non-Germans suspected of committing crime, including asylum seekers, compared to the previous year. In 2014 non-Germans were suspects in 179,563 crimes, or 8.4 percent of all recorded crimes. In 2015 non-Germans were suspects in 463,889 crimes, or 26 percent of all crimes.