Germany’s centre-left government has decided to impose temporary land border restrictions aimed at controlling irregular migration in the wake of a knife attack and electoral gains made by a far-right party.
The new curbs, announced by the government on Monday, come days after the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) won elections to the eastern state of Thuringia and came a close second in the neighbouring state of Saxony. Those elections were held in the shadow of a knife attack, allegedly carried out by a Syrian asylum seeker, that killed three people in the western city of Solingen.
