Refugee crisis: Germany prepares for the arrival of another 40,000 new refugees
Munich has received at least another 7,200 refugee arrivals today
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Around 40,000 refugees are expected to arrive in Germany in the next few days, doubling the number who entered the country last weekend.
The travellers are expected to enter the country at southern Munich, where 7,200 refugees arrived today, after travelling over the Austrian border.
German defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told Der Spiegel that 4,000 soldiers will be available to help with the latest unprecedented influx of Syrian refugees.
"They will provide a helping hand, for example to set up a refugee camp, to help with organisation, provide buses and drivers, other types of transport, medical services and equipment, anything of that kind," a Defence Ministry spokesman told The Local.
On Thursday the army said that they are already housing 14,500 refugees in 41 locations, most of whom are arriving by train via Austria.
There are concerns about how some areas will cope with the number of refugees set to arrive. However, state broadcaster ARD found in a poll that 61 per cent of Germans are not afraid of the country's mass refugee intake.
The mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter, has appealed urgently to other German regions to help to process and accommodate more refugees, calling their failure to do more "scandalous", according to ARD.
An emergency shelter has been opened in a two-storey, vacant office building in north east Munich with 2,500 places.
Since announcing last month that it would allow applications from Syrian refugees regardless of where they first arrived in the EU, Germany has said it expects to take 800,000 asylum seekers this year.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that they should be integrated and helped with finding work as quickly as possible.
According to the International Office for Migration (IOM), a record of 433,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, many arriving in Italy and Greece and traveling north to Germany.
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