A German MP from Angela Merkel’s party has put his money where his mouth is by welcoming two asylum seekers into his home – and urged fellow citizens to do the same.

Martin Patzelt, a member of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and advocate of more humane refugee policies, now shares his house with two men who have fled from Eritrea.

But the MP’s calls for Germans to take in refugees has seen him receive death threats amid increasing tensions in Germany over immigration.

The two new housemates, Haben, 19, and Awet, 24, live in the attic level of the home Mr Patzelt shares with his wife Katharina in the village of Briesen, Brandenburg.

“We want to give them a help start here, to help them learn German and to release them some day back into society, like our own children,” Mr Patzelt told German newspaper Die Welt.

Hostility over immigration has been rising in Germany, which receives the most asylum applications in Europe. The German government announced in May that it is expecting asylum applications to reach 400,000 in 2015, nearly double the 202,000 applications it received in 2014.

bbabo.Net