BERLIN, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of German police officers raided a refugee accommodation center in the German town of Ellwangen on Thursday in an attempt to regain control over its revolting inhabitants.
"We will not allow lawless spaces to be created as we were beginning to encounter here," Ellwangen police vice-president Bernhard Weber justified the unusual measure.
On Wednesday, German police had failed to arrest and deport a 23-year-old Togolese national at the refugee center after a "massive" and "violent" resistance staged by between 150 and 200 inhabitants of the facility.
Weber told press that local police had never witnessed a comparable situation. The four police officers tasked with deporting the unsuccessful asylum seeker to Italy were forced to abandon their mission by the aggressive reaction of the largely West African refugees at the center.
"I do not want to imagine what could have happened if the situation escalated," Weber said. He emphasized that local police subsequently sent an unmistakable message that "justice will be served" without exceptions in Germany.
On Thursday, a much larger and heavily-armed police force returned to the Ellwangen refugee center and successfully seized the 23-year-old along with five other inhabitants suspected of drug-related offenses.
According to media reports, some refugees suffered injuries as they attempted to escape from the police raid by jumping out of windows. Police spokesperson Bernhard Kohn confirmed that rescue services were "busy" as a consequence of the intervention.
Commenting on the incident on Wednesday, German Interior Minister and Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Horst Seehofer described the uprising of refugees in Ellwangen as "outrageous" and a "smack in the face of the law-abiding population." Seehofer told press that he offered his "full political support" to the harsh measures adopted by security authorities and added that attempts to overturn the rule of law needed to be confronted with "full force and resoluteness."
The interior minister also announced that his department would study the case closely in order to determine whether any policy implications would have to be drawn, in particular, the interior ministry's policies towards refugees who were convicted of criminal offenses after arriving in Germany. Seehofer accused the revolting inhabitants of the Ellwangen center of "abusing the hospitality" granted to them by the German state.
Meanwhile, the Togolese national whose asylum application had failed, has been transferred to a different refugee center. The 23-year-old still faces deportation to Italy but may now additionally be charged by German judicial authorities on the grounds of endangering the public peace.
