2018 Ellwangen police raid
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A police raid in Ellwangen, Germany, on 30 April 2018 led to clashes between the German police and migrants living there. A second raid was conducted on 3 May 2018, in which 12 people were injured. The case received national as well as international media attention, sparking the public debate about migrant integration and the deportation process.[1][2]
The migrant reception center "Landeserstaufnahmeeinrichtung Ellwangen" (LEA) was established in April 2015 in some buildings of the Reinhardt-Kaserne in Ellwangen, a former military facility. Immigrants who arrive in the administrative district of Stuttgart are brought to this center for their registration, health checks and the start of an asylum procedure. They usually stay for some weeks in Ellwangen,[citation needed] before they are assigned to other towns. The facility was once planned to have a capacity of 500 - 1000 inhabitants.[3]
Incidents
In the morning hours of Monday, 30 April 2018, four police officers went with two patrol cars to the migrant reception center to arrest the 23-year-old Yussif O., an asylum seeker from Togo, who was scheduled for deportation to Italy.[4] They found Yussif O. in the center and arrested him. When the officers tried to leave the site, they were surrounded by about 150 migrant reception residents who threatened them and damaged one police car, preventing the police officers from leaving.[2] Alassa Mfouapon, from Cameroon, co-organized the asylum seekers,[5][6] "[7] It would have taken hours for police reinforcements to arrive.[citation needed].[8][1][9]
Three days later a second raid was conducted with hundreds of policemen to re-establish the rule of law.[2][10] They arrested Yussif O. In addition, several persons suspected of drugs offences were arrested, and 17 residents were moved of the hostel, home to around 500 mostly African asylum seekers, to other locations.[1] 27 asylum seekers offered resistance, while some were injured, when they jumped out of the windows.[2] 292 people were checked, twelve people were injured in total, among these one police officer.[11][12]
Bernhard Weber, the vice president of the Ellwangen police regional authority (German: Vizepräsident des Polizeipräsidiums Ellwangen),[13] said they acted because of concerns that a "lawless area with organised structures" was developing at the shelter.[14]