JM News UK

By Erik Kirschbaum BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government will hold a crisis meeting to address a surge of refugees amid an upturn in attacks against shelters and complaints from local authorities about a lack of funding to house them, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Friday. The announcement by Steffen Seibert of a top-level meeting in her office on May 8 with state and government leaders came on the heels of an opinion poll showing 58 percent believe there is a climate of hostility toward foreigners in Germany. The number of asylum seekers to Germany more than doubled in the first quarter to 85,394 and states estimate the total for 2015 could be four times as many as the 100,000 refugees who arrived in 2013. The federal government has generally welcomed refugees, in part to atone for the past and because some post-war leaders survived the Nazi era thanks to asylum elsewhere.