Altena residents with some of the town's refugees Photo: DPAAltena, a town in western Germany, was on Wednesday honoured by Chancellor Angela Merkel for its achievements in integrating refugees. The North Rhine-Westphalian town set up a programme which aimed to successfully integrate every refugee that was sent there. The town was allocated 270 refugees in 2015, but opted to take an extra 102. Altena has another reason to want to integrate more refugees: no other city in western Germany has seen its population shrink as fast. But since 2015 the town saw a rise in its population because of the intake of refugees, having previously suffered 20 years of population decline.

Source: The Local May 19, 2017 12:11 UTC