After New Attack, Germans Protest Violence
More than half a million people took to the streets in cities across Germany on Sunday, hours after arsonists threw firebombs at a refugee shelter in the Baltic coastal city of Greifswald.
Police in Greifswald said that about 25 refugees from Romania and several African countries were in the shelter when two firebombs were thrown onto a balcony overnight. Minor damage was reported, but no one was hurt.
Rightists are blamed for more than 2,000 attacks that have killed 17 people this year, injured hundreds and damaged refugee shelters and Holocaust monuments.
Huge demonstrations against the attacks have been held in several cities, however, and the level of violence has appeared to wane in recent weeks. Hundreds of thousands of people have rallied in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg.
Over the weekend, large crowds came out again for the Lichterketten --candle-lit marches that have come to symbolize disgust at the violence.
More than 500,000 people joined demonstrations in at least 12 cities Sunday.
Police said that rallies in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart each drew about 120,000, about 100,000 each in Hannover and Bremen and about 55,000 in Saarbruecken.
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