Migration crisis: Desperate refugees escape camps and start a 110-mile trek to Austria
German customs have seized packages of Syrian passports being sent in the post, the finance ministry said on Friday, writes Justin Huggler in Berlin.
It is suspected they may be used by economic migrants to pose as refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. Both genuine and fake Syrian passports are believed to have been found in the packages that were intercepted.
A spokesman for the ministry told reporters police were currently investigating the documents, but would not comment on how many were found.
There is believed to be a market for Syrian documents as European countries tighten the rules to make sure only those in genuine need are admitted as asylum-seekers.
Germany has unilaterally suspended EU rules for Syrian refugees, and said it will process their asylum claims regardless of where they entered the EU.
But Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is trying to change the country’s asylum system to deter economic migrants from safe countries like the Balkans, by making it easier for them to be deported.
“A lot of people enter Turkey with fake Syrian papers, because they know that they’ll get asylum in the EU more easily,” Fabrice Leggeri, the head of Frontex, the EU’s border agency, told French radio.