According to the Bild newspaper, the family was told their asylum application had been rejected by Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. “The letter made me very frightened,” father Mamon Al-Hamza told the Bild. In the past, almost all Syrians in Germany were granted refugee status under the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. The move marks a break from the accepted procedure across much of the world, whereby Syrians are granted refugee status even though the actual wording of the U.N. Asylum seekers are technically encouraged to seek asylum in the first safe country they enter.

Source: Washington Post November 25, 2016 16:24 UTC