The government in Berlin had earlier forecast that 450,000 asylum seekers could arrive in 2015, but is now set to increase that to 650,000 or higher.
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Sweden recorded the next biggest number of asylum applications in the EU in 2014 – 13 percent, although as a proportion in relation to its population size, the country is shouldering the biggest burden in the bloc.
“The situation is extremely unsatisfying”, Chancellor Angela Merkel told ZDF television on Sunday, referring to the disproportionate number of refugees that Germany has taken in compared to many of its EU partners.
New official figures are due to be published on Wednesday, and if that projection is confirmed, it would be a record and far more than the previous high in 1992, when Germany opened its doors to refugees fleeing the Balkans wars.
“All countries in Europe have the moral responsibility to welcome them and the clear legal obligation to protect them”, Guterres added.
In the city-state of Hamburg, for example, more than 7,300 people applied for asylum in the second quarter of the year in comparison with around 6,700 in the first quarter, while 5,700 put in an application in July alone, the paper said.
State authorities have been calling for greater federal aid to cope with the demand.
Most German cities had reached the limits of their capacities this week, reports Deutsche Welle.
There is also a flood of asylum seekers from Balkan countries.
Nevertheless, some have seen the refugee surge as an opportunity to revive the country’s economy.
Close to a quarter of a million refugees have crossed the Mediterranean already this year, arriving in Greece and Italy and often moving on to other regions. Attacks on refugee shelters has soared this year. Most attacks have taken place in former Communist eastern states.
On Monday, angry residents threw firecrackers at an asylum seekers’ hostel in the northeast of Germany, the BBC reports.
And elsewhere in the east, thousands of people have marched in towns and cities in protest at asylum seekers being housed in their areas and against what they call the “Islamisation of the West”. The move marked a step forward, yet fell short of the 40,000 target.
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Development Minister Gerd Mueller called Tuesday for urgent action from the EU, saying “the European Commission must switch immediately from vacation to emergency mode”.
