Citizens of one Germany’s most posh and wealthy municipalities, Grünwald in the Munich District, are concerned about being hosts to a 300 men strong refugee population, Merkur.de reported yesterday, February 28, 2016. The men are sheltered at an air dome at the border of Grünwald and Wörnbrunn since December 2015. The majority of the asylum-seekers arrived from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iraq. The men of course can’t spend the whole day in and wandering around the air dome where there isn’t anything to do for them. They walk to the nearby stores and the tram station in the centre, either to take the tram into Munich, or to use the free Wi-Fi hotspot there.

Larger groups of men gather there and stare at their smartphones, talk, sometimes drink too much and then get loud or even fight. This combined with rumours about them shoplifting and otherwise behaving in a way Grünwalders aren’t accustomed to, causes more and more opposition towards them being sheltered at the air dome in such a number.

Concerned mothers from the municipality had written a letter to the mayor of the 11.000 souls counting community, worried about Grünwald becoming similar to one of the Paris suburbs which are mostly inhabited by migrants. They are planning to launch a citizens’ initiative to stop the allocation of municipal land to the District Office for the accommodation of refugees and not to renew the lease on the air dome in Wörnbrunn.