ROSTOCK: Shahd Najeeb still remembers the trauma of fleeing the militant Islamic State fighters during Syria’s civil war. More than a decade after finding refuge in Germany, she now fears she may no longer be welcome there.

“When I think about the time we left Syria, I still don’t know how we managed to get through it,” she said in her home in Rostock, on Germany’s Baltic coast. “It was like a nightmare.”

Najeeb and her husband, Mahmoud Hmouech, fled their home in Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria and rebuilt their lives in Germany, where he works in a barber shop and she serves meals in local schools. They have two young children.

“We are grateful to the German people for welcoming us and giving us peace and security,” Hmouech said. “The work we do is a small way of showing our gratitude.” They are among more than 900,000 Syrians living in Germany, most of whom arrived as asylum seekers during the civil war.

But as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) gains support and migration returns to the centre of political debate, migrants say hostility towards foreigners is growing.

Most of the people of migrant background interviewed by this agency said they had encountered more anti-immigrant abuse in recent years, ranging from muttered remarks to demands that they return to their countries of origin. One woman said a neighbour poured foul-smelling water on her from a balcony. In Najeeb and Hmouech’s home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in the formerly communist east, opinion polls suggest the AfD is set to become the biggest party in an election on Sunday.

Several interviewees, including people working in healthcare, tourism, education and food services, said they would consider leaving Rostock or Schwerin if the climate continued to worsen.

Sitting in the family’s small apartment in northern Rostock, where their children’s drawings cover one wall and toys are neatly stacked in corners of the living room, Najeeb spoke as her children, aged 6 and 4, played nearby.

Najeeb recalled stopping at a grocery store after collecting her children from school when, she said, an elderly man in a wheelchair shouted that she did not belong in Germany. “This country is for Germans,” he yelled.

“The pain I experienced in Rostock is a new kind of pain that I have never felt before,” Najeeb said. “You feel the injustice because you have done nothing wrong. I worked hard to build a life for myself and then someone comes along and treats you like garbage,” she said, her voice cracking.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2026