Roundup: Europe sees growing anti-migrant sentiment amid unending influx of refugees

Europe is seeing an increasing number of refugees arriving in the continent despite harsh winter conditions, which has triggered growing anti-migrant sentiment in the EU and mounting pressure on politicians over immigration policies.

GROWING TENSION OVER IMMIGRATION

In Sweden, two arrestes have been made after dozens of masked men believed to belong to neo-Nazi gangs gathered Friday night in Stockholm and handed out leaflets calling for attacks against young migrants, police said on Saturday.

Police had beefed up their presence in the city center, deploying anti-riot and helicopter units after learning that extremists were planning "aggression on unaccompanied migrant minors" in the city late Friday. The Swedish government announced earlier this week that it plans to deport up to 80,000 asylum seekers over the next few years,

In Britain's Dover, a town in Kent county, southeast England, clashes took place Saturday between anti-immigration and anti-racism groups, with media reports of smoke bombs and bricks being thrown.

Kent police said one person suffered a broken arm and five people sustained minor injuries during the demonstrations in the port town, which faces France across the strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel.

It is a 90-minute ferry journey to Dover from Calais in France, where thousands of refugees fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East have gathered over the past year, using the English town as a stopover point before trying to enter Britain.

In southwest Germany, some 80 far-right demonstrators and 150 "anti-fascist initiative and citizen movement members as well as refugees themselves" showed up Saturday in the Black Forest town of Villingen-Schwenningen, police said.

The demonstration took place after a hand grenade was thrown early Friday morning into a refugee shelter in the town, where about 20 refugees were sleeping. The device did not explode and no damage or injuries were reported.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the attack represented a new level of "hate and violence" that must be addressed by local and federal authorities.

Germany, which received roughly 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, is seeing rising violence against them, especially after the sexual assaults on New Year's Eve in Cologne that were blamed largely on foreigners.

More than 1,000 attacks against refugee shelters occurred in Germany last year, nearly five times the amount of similar incidents in 2014, with more than 900 attacks relating to right-wing extremism, according to the data released by the Federal Criminal Police Office on Thursday.

Frauke Petry, head of the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany party, told local media Saturday that border security officials should use their guns "as a last resort" to prevent illegal immigration.

MOUNTING PRESSURE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under increased pressure to reverse her open-arms policy to those asylum seekers. The chancellor on Saturday tried to placate the critics, insisting that most of asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq should go home once the conflicts there end.

"We expect, once there is peace in Syria again, once the IS (Islamic State) has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained," Merkel told a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Union.

Speaking of the EU's response to the refugee issue, Merkel said that she was disappointed with the current cooperation within the bloc, and urged other European countries to offer more help.

"The numbers (of refugees) need to be reduced even further and must not start to rise again, especially in spring," she said.

All EU states, she added, would suffer if the internal passport-free Schengen zone collapsed and national borders were closed.

Merkel's remarks came after leaders of the German ruling coalition on Thursday struck a compromise on changes to asylum laws that highlights family reunion for refugees. The deal was reached following months-long debate over who should initially be blocked from bringing relatives to Germany.

DANGEROUS JOURNEYS

Despite the growing anti-immigrant sentiment within the bloc, refugees are still trying to reach Europe, very often through treacherous means. At least 39 refugees, including children, drowned as their boat capsized off Turkey's Aegean coast early on Saturday, Turkish media reported.

The 17-meter-long boat overturned off Bademli coast in western Turkey soon after departing from Turkey's Canakkale province for the Greek island of Lesbos.

Latest reports said the boat was carrying more than 100 refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar, and the Turkish coast guard rescued 62 people from the sea.

The drownings added to the recent tragedies that happened in the refugees' Europe-bound sea voyage.

Since the beginning of the year, some 55,528 refugees and migrants have entered Europe by way of the Mediterranean Sea, the International Organization for Migration reported on Friday.

The report said 244 people died attempting to reach European shores in the first 28 days of January.

A total of 218 fatalities were recorded on the Eastern Mediterranean route separating Turkey and Greece, while 26 people lost their lives on the central Mediterranean passage linking North Africa and Italy.

The European Union has urged both Turkey and Greece to take steps to stem the inflow of refugees into the continent. Endi