Demonstrators against the arrival of refugees stand guarded by policemen near a refugees camp on August 22, 2015 in Heidenau, Germany | Matthias Rietschel/Getty Images Hate crime ‘threatens peace’ in eastern Germany: report Violence against foreigners in the region peaked in 2015, the report said.

Violent acts targeting foreigners and migrants have sharply risen in the eastern part of Germany in recent years, the German government warned in a report to be published on October 3, marking the country's national unity day.

The report cites "countless attacks on refugees and their shelters" in the past year as well as outbursts of violence in Heidenau and Freital, two cities located near Dresden in the state of Saxony. Such attacks are "symbols of a growing hate of foreigners." Excerpts of the report were published on Wednesday in the Handelsblatt newspaper after the business daily obtained a copy of it.

The "worrying trend" could "threaten the peace of the Eastern German society," said Iris Gleicke according to Handelsblatt. Gleicke is a member of the government in charge of the country's former Eastern bloc that was under communist rule.

Areas in former East Germany remain poorer than former West Germany, with a GDP about a quarter lower than in the West, the report said, adding that differences have largely disappeared since the reunification in 1990.

According to statistics, hate crime in the East is well above the rest of the country. In the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the far-right Alternative for Germany registered an unprecedented electoral success earlier this month, attacks on foreigners and migrants reached 58.7 per million inhabitants. The average for the western part of the country is 10.5, according to Handelsblatt.

Authorities started tracking violence against foreigners in 2001. It reached its peak in 2015, according to the report.

The report also warned that far-right groups have been gaining strength from rising hatred against foreigners, saying that one such terror organization known as the National Socialist Underground has killed 10 people in recent years.

The report noted that there are fewer foreigners in eastern Germany than in other parts of the country, underlining the fact that violence and hatred are not the result of the influx of migrants, but rather due to emigration from the East to other, richer parts of the country and a lack of social structures.

The report also noted an increase in violent incidents from left-wing radicals in the former East. Left-wing militants "misuse demonstrations [against the far-right] and committed a number of criminal acts, sometimes associated with extreme violence, especially against the police," it said.