Crime Four dead
The Integration Council and Ditib suspect a racist attack behind the arson in Solingen
As of: 10:13 a.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
Fire with four deaths in Solingen was arson
According to a preliminary report, the major fire in an apartment building in Solingen with four deaths was caused by intentional arson. The Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office has now announced this.
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The North Rhine-Westphalia State Integration Council suspects that there are “racist backgrounds” behind the fatal fire in Solingen. The Turkish-Islamic Union (Ditib) made a similar statement. The investigators assume that the arson was intentionally set, but there is no evidence of a racist motive.
After the arson in an apartment building in Solingen, migrant representatives suspect that it was a racially motivated attack. “Unfortunately, we have to assume that there are racist backgrounds behind the cowardly attack,” said the chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia Integration Council, Tayfun Keltek, on Wednesday evening in Düsseldorf. “The current socially heated situation leads me to this conclusion.”
On Monday night, four people, presumably from Bulgaria, died in the apparently intentionally set fire in an apartment building in Solingen-Höhscheid – parents aged 28 and 29 as well as a three-year-old and a five-month-old child. Several people were injured, some of them seriously. According to the preliminary fire report, residues of fire accelerant were found in the stairwell of the building, a wooden structure.
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The investigators therefore assume that the arson was intentionally set. “The house was undoubtedly also inhabited by migrants,” said a spokesman for the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office on Thursday when asked by the German Press Agency. However, there is currently no evidence of a racist motive, said the public prosecutor’s office and the police. Among other things, murder and attempted murder are being investigated.
The spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office added that it is currently assumed that in addition to the killed family, another seriously injured family was also Bulgarian. It is not yet possible to say whether other nationalities may be represented among the residents.
“The inhumanity of this arson is shocking”
Keltek called the act a “further setback for our peaceful coexistence and a continuation of the atrocity of 30 years ago” in Solingen. “The meeting of racists and anti-democrats in Potsdam shows once again that it has not been possible to combat racism and right-wing extremism in Germany,” explained the chairman of the State Integration Council. He called for people to take a “clear stance” and take a position.
The Turkish-Islamic Union (Ditib) also made a similar statement. The act “shocks us deeply and awakens traumatic memories,” said the federal association in Cologne. “The vileness and inhumanity of this arson is shocking.”
The scene of the fire in Solingen
Source: dpa/Christoph Reichwein
The Ditib expressed criticism of the public prosecutor’s office and the police because they have not yet assumed a racist motive. “Solingen again, another deadly house fire, again late at night, again accelerant,” explained the Islamic association. “Especially in Solingen, especially after the unspeakable scandals after the NSU, such statements that suggest that certain motives for the crime are not consistently pursued are dangerous and trigger horror and mistrust among people with a migrant background.” It makes people sit up and take notice that in the house the majority of people with a migrant background lived.
At Pentecost 1993, four young men from the neo-Nazi scene in Solingen set fire to the house of the Turkish-born Genç family. Two women and three girls between the ages of 4 and 27 died, and other family members were injured, some of them critically. The act was one of the most serious xenophobic attacks in post-war German history.