In a tragic turn of events, the Festival of Diversity in Solingen, Germany, became the scene of a brutal attack that claimed the lives of three individuals and left eight others injured. The assailant, identified as 26-year-old Issa al H., was a Syrian migrant whose history raises profound questions about the country's immigration and asylum policies. Despite being slated for deportation after his asylum application was rejected, al H. remained in Germany, eventually acquiring a controversial “subsidiary protection status.” This incident has reignited the debate over the effectiveness of migration controls and the challenges of managing individuals who pose a potential threat to public safety. As details emerge about the attack and its motivations, a disturbing pattern of violence linked to migration status becomes increasingly evident, prompting urgent calls for introspection and reform within European immigration systems.
The Syrian knife attacker who killed three people and injured eight others at the Festival of Diversity in Germany in Solingen was actually slated for deportation but was never sent home.
Germany’s Bild newspaper revealed that the 26-year-old migrant, Issa al H., had entered the EU via Bulgaria, but only applied for asylum in Germany in 2022. His application was rejected, but like hundreds of thousands of migrants, he was never sent home.
When he found out about his rejected application, the suspected Islamist is said to have gone into hiding, only to report back to the authorities six months later. However, deportation orders have a deadline, and once his expired, instead of pursuing new efforts to deport the man, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees issued him with “subsidiary protection status.” This status is only granted if the asylum seeker faces serious danger in his home country.
On Friday evening, the Syrian stabbed three people to death at the “Festival of Diversity” in the western state of Solingen and injured eight others, some of them seriously, with a knife.
Several of his victims are still hospitalized and are struggling to survive, as the Syrian deliberately aimed for the neck during his attack.
The attacker had at first managed to flee but then turned himself in to the police on Saturday morning.
Since the attacks, the Islamic terrorist group “Islamic State” (IS) released a statement describing the Syrian as a “soldier” who had attacked a “gathering of Christians” in order to take revenge “for the Muslims in Palestine and all other places.”
The last time IS publicly claimed responsibility for an attack in Germany was in 2016 when Islamist Anis Amri attacked a Christmas market in Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz with a truck and killed 13 people.
In many cases across Europe, brutal and horrifying attacks have occurred after migrants were issued deportation orders. Earlier this year, an Afghan Islamist who lived in Germany illegally for eight years stabbed a police officer to death during a terror attack, while in the case of French schoolgirl Lola, who was raped, tortured, murdered and then stuffed in a suitcase by an Algerian migrant, the perpetrator had also been ordered to leave the country before carrying out the attack. Reports afterward confirmed that only 0.2 percent of Algerians ordered to leave France were actually deported.