Belgium: Afghan migrant, 16, 'rapes worker at asylum centre'

A teenage Afghan immigrant has been charged with raping a female worker at an asylum seekers' centre in Belgium. The 16-year-old asylum seeker allegedly followed a worker from a catering firm into the basement and raped her at the centre in Menen, near the French border.

A spokeswoman for the Red Cross said it was the first time in 25 years such an incident has occurred at one of the organisation's asylum seeker centres in the country.

"Two weeks ago we gave a course about how to treat women in Flanders and the boy was present there," said the spokeswoman. The judge ordered the teenager to be detained in youth custody until his next hearing.

Tom Van Grieken, leader of anti-immigrant party Vlaams Belang said on Twitter: "I repeat: people who need a course on how to treat women should not be there in the first place." Belgium received 35,476 asylum requests in 2015, more than twice the level of 2014. The latest incident has left anti-immigration politicians and the public outraged.

It also follows the Cologne sex attacks on New Year's Eve, in which hundreds of women filed sexual assault complaints after wave of attacks in the German city, carried out by men described as of Arab or North African appearance. A mob of men - believed to be of North African and Arab origin - were said to have molested and robbed women after congregating at the city's central station.

The latest incident also echoes that of Swedish social worker https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/migrant-crisis-young-female-refugee-centre-worker-stabbed-death-by-migrant-sweden-1540020 Alexandra Mezher, who it is alleged was stabbed to death by Somalian migrant Youssaf Khaliif Nuur at an adolescent migrant centre where she worked in Gothenberg, Sweden last month.

In December an Iraqi migrant admitted to the brutal rape of a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna. The attack happened at the Resienbad pool in Vienna on December 2.

The spate of sex attacks by migrants has sparked an emotive debate about the government's policy of welcoming refugees from the Syrian civil war.