Berlin Christmas Market Attack On Front Page In Germany

"Fear of terrorism in Berlin," read the front page of Berlin-based daily Der Tagesspiegel on Tuesday, a day after a seven-ton truck plowed into a Christmas market in the heart of the German capital, killing 12 and wounding dozens.

German police are investigating the event as a terrorist attack. Early this morning, police raided a hangar that serves as refugee center. The suspected attacker, who was apprehended 2 kilometers from the scene of the crime, is a 23-year-old Pakistani who arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker in February, German tabloid Bild reports. Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was "difficult to stomach" that the assault was the work of someone who had come to Germany seeking asylum and that it was "particularly disgusting" for volunteers helping refugees.

DER TAGESSPIEGEL

Der Tagesspiegel ("The Daily Mirror") is a German-language daily newspaper that was founded in 1945. It is headquartered in Berlin and has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam.

DER TAGESSPIEGEL

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Migrant Lives

Migration

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

David Peinado via Zuma Press

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.