BavarianStallion

Because their parents are either dead or they only had enough money to send one family member. Traffickers take thousands of dollars to take a single person to Europe.

Maybe not the nearest safe country, but certainly the richest.

I'm afraid some of them really are. They have been told their entire life that the West is a magical place where milk and honey flow in the rivers.Their traffickers also made them a lot of promises. So they come here with huge expectations which we can't meet because we are on a really tight budget. One boy told me that he doesn't want to work because the German state after all pays for all of his expenses.

The majority is just glad that they got out of the hellholes they came from. Many have scars all over their bodies, one guy misses an eye, another one has a gunshot wound. Poverty certainly also was an aspect that led to them coming here, but it is not the only reason.

There are almost no girls. Families wouldn't send a girl on the way alone because something might happen to them. Also, this might sound a bit harsh, but when they only have enough money to send one child they rather choose a son.

They are "lucky" that they are unaccompanied minors. They have it way better than adults who often live in crowded camps or maybe even in tents. We live in a house and two boys respectively have to bunk together in one room. We have a garden, two kitchens, a huge living room with TV. Couldn't be better.

The average Germans here are pretty divided on that topic. Most welcome refugees from war-torn countries but people who "only" come here to escape poverty from for example states of the Balkans are often frowned upon.

A small minority wants all gone, they argue that we have enough problems of our own and shouldn't waste money on people who they think abuse our social security system.

In general I was really surprised about the outpour of help from the community. A lot of people donate clothes and their time to help. Our neighbours for example gave us an old foosball table and a sofa.