AACHEN (Germany): German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Social Democrat challenger in elections scheduled for September said on Sunday that the country needed to take action now to prevent a re-run of 2015, when some 890,000 migrants arrived.

In September 2015, Ms Merkel threw open Germany’s borders to thousands of migrants to avoid a humanitarian disaster — a move that later hit her popularity and boosted the anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

However, her conservative party has since recovered and support for the AfD has dropped.

Over 93,000 sub-Saharan Africans and Bangladeshis have arrived in Italy this year

Martin Schulz, whose Social Democrats (SPD) are lagging far behind Ms Merkel in the polls ahead of the Sept 24 elections, warned against a repeat scenario as more than 93,000 mainly sub-Saharan African and Bangladeshi migrants have arrived by boat in southern Italy this year. The figure is up 17 per cent from the same period last year.

“The numbers in Italy are worrying — thousands per day,” he said in an interview in the western German city of Aachen.

“If we don’t want a repeat of what we experienced in 2015, we need to take action now as the Italians are reaching their limit in terms of what they can do.”

Other European Union countries needed to help Italy, such as by taking in refugees, he said.

Mr Schulz said he had spoken to European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker about what financial or logistical help Brussels might be able to offer countries prepared to take in refugees. He said he would speak to both the Italian government and the commission about this during the week.

In the interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Mr Schulz said the situation was “highly explosive” and suggested that he wanted to turn it into an election campaign issue. “Those who play for time and try to ignore the topic until the election are acting in a very cynical way.”

Migrant arrivals in Germany have been far lower this year than in the previous two years. Data from the interior ministry shows the number of new arrivals seeking asylum fell to 90,389 in the first half of 2017, about half as many as in the earlier period.

Last year, some 280,000 migrants arrived in Germany -- a sharp drop compared with 2015 -- and the refugee issue has not yet played a major role in the election campaign.

The latest Emnid poll showed support for the conservatives on 38pc and the SPD on 25pc.

Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) — the Bavarian sister party to Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) — told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that the situation was calm now, but added: “We all know that the wave of migrants will continue.”

The CSU, which takes a tougher tone on migrants than the CDU, has long called for an upper limit on the numbers arriving and Mr Seehofer repeated his call for a cap of 200,000 per year. Ms Merkel has rejected a cap.

According to a newspaper report, Mr Schulz plans to travel to Italy on Thursday to meet Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2017