Germany: 10 injured in arson attack in migrant centre as prams are set on fire

Unknown assailants have allegedly set fire to two prams at a migrant centre in central Germany injuring 10 people, including a two-month-old baby, according to local reports. The suspected arson attack took place on 7 December in Altenburg, Thuringia, shortly after 3am and following a weekend of tensions due to a far-right demonstration that rallied against the pro-refugee policies of the government.

The prams were placed at the entrance of a six-storey building that houses 70 asylum-seekers. Around 10 people were taken to hospital after they inhaled smoke. The ground floor of the centre was completely devastated by the fire and damages amounted to €20,000 (£14,300, $21,600) according to local police.

On 7 December, Germany said it had registered 964,574 new asylum-seekers in the first 11 months of 2015. In November alone, more than 200,000 migrants arrived in the country, according to figures from the interior ministry.

Tensions are running high in the country as far-right groups seek to exploit the surge in migrants for political reasons. More than 500 supporters of the right-wing Thugida (which is against the Islamisation of the West) movement, an affiliate of the Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) group, marched on 5 December in Altenburg against the "anti-German policy" of the government, chanting anti-immigration slogans.

Pegida started as a protest group in October 2014 and mushroomed into a movement of 20,000 people. Every Monday, thousands of people rally in Dresden under the Pegida banner to express frustration against Muslims, migrants and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Since January, the movement started to lose supporters, especially after pictures of the founder and leader of the group Lutz Bachmann posing as Hitler went viral. But the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Germany in the summer helped revive the Monday rallies. In June, a Pegida candidate received 9.6% of the vote in Dresden.