German police processed more than 3,500 reports of attacks against migrants and asylum seekers last year, amounting to nearly 10 such attacks every day. 

Interior ministry data showed that 560 people, including 43 children, were injured in the assaults, the AFP reported. 

Just over 2,500 of the attacks were directed towards individual refugees and migrants. A further 988 were attacks against refugee housing, including arson attacks. 

In 2014 - one year before chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany up to Syrian refugees fleeing civil war - there were just 199 hate crimes directed towards refugee housing.

Migrant arrivals were down sharply last year, following the EU's decision to broker a migrant processing deal with Turkey and close the Balkan overland route taken by many Syrian asylum seekers. 

Earlier this month, a German neo-Nazi was handed an eight-year prison sentence for burning down a sports hall used to house refugees. 

 

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