
Chain-smoking outside a coffee bar in Germany’s capital, young Syrian Mohammad Al-Abaan bangs his hand loudly on the table as three teenage girls walk past in Islamic robes.

‘Look at them!’ he says. ‘They pretend to be migrants from my country, but they lie. Their skin is blacker than ours. I know they are Arab-speaking Muslims from Sudan in Africa. Every day, more Africans, Afghanis, Iraqis, Iranians, Lebanese, and lots of others, slip through the door opened by Germany to us Syrians.’

These are strong words, particularly as Mohammad has only just set foot in Europe himself, arriving in Berlin a week ago by train from Hungary with his friend Ismail Gannom.

Scroll down for video

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimated that only half of the 381,000 people who have landed this year in Italy and Greece — the two main entry points for migrants — are Syrian. Others come from all over the Middle East and Africa

With a shrinking and ageing population — and a desperate need to expand its workforce — Germany’s original welcome call to Syrians is viewed by some as not purely selfless

A refugee child leaves an express train arriving in Germany at Freilassing after travelling from Hungary and Austria. Around 2,000 migrants have crossed into the southern state of Bavaria since Germany announced its policy U-turn on Sunday

They are civil engineering graduates, both 25 and from middle-class families, who fled Syria to escape military service in President Bashar Al-Assad’s army as it wages a civil war against rebels, including Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists.

In Berlin, a government bus whisked them with 150 others to a reception centre in Neukolln, a bustling multicultural district in the south of the city. Charity workers, city officials and local well-wishers waved welcome signs and pink and blue balloons were hung on lamp-posts outside. ‘The Germans love us, and we love Germany,’ said Mohammad.

Until Sunday, migrants had flooded into more than 2,000 reception centres in cities across Germany, from Munich to Hamburg

A German police officer ask refugees to leave an express train coming from Hungary and Austria at the train station in Freilassing, near the the Austrian-German border, southern German

Hundreds of refugees wait for a special train at Freilassing. There is now word that the bulk of migrants are exaggerating the truth behind their reasons for heading to Europe

Until Sunday, migrants at 2,000 reception centres in cities from Munich to Hamburg were met with the same greetings. The scenes followed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s declaration that all arriving Syrians should be treated as war refugees, offered asylum and — turning a blind eye to EU rules — not be returned for fingerprinting and registration to the country where they first entered Europe.

Now, the Merkel dream is unravelling: the relentless flow of migrants has overwhelmed the EU mainland. On Sunday afternoon, Germany temporarily shut its borders with Austria, later introducing tougher vetting of migrants.

The dramatic U-turn reinstated border controls that had not been in place for two decades, placing Europe’s prized Schengen Agreement — allowing passport-free movement across much of the Continent — under real threat.

A female charity worker (left) takes newly arrived Syrians on a tour of Berlin, where they are old about the city sights and how to work the transport system

Mohammed Dabaan (middle in blue) and friend Ismail Gannon (with beard) say 30 per cent of refugees who claim to be Syrian are not from Syria

Yet Mrs Merkel had insisted ‘we can do it’ when she welcomed migrants to the country last week, criticising other states, including Britain, for not doing enough to help.

With a shrinking and ageing population — and a desperate need to expand its workforce — Germany’s original welcome call to Syrians is viewed by some as not purely selfless.

Whatever its true motives, Germany has left the fabric of the European project in jeopardy. Yesterday Austria, Slovakia and Holland pledged tighter border controls. Hungary completed a razor-wire fence to keep out migrants from beyond the EU, and declared a state of emergency on its southern borders with Serbia. Hungarian officials said they had denied 16 asylum claims at the frontier within hours.

Joachim Hermann, the interior minister of Germany’s Bavaria (coping with enormous arrivals from Austria), said stricter rules were needed. ‘We have established in the past few days that many en route here are not really refugees,’ he said.

Austria (pictured), Slovakia and Holland have pledged tighter border controls. Hungary yesterday completed a razor-wire fence to keep out migrants from beyond the EU

Refugees queue up for a bus, as they arrive at the border between Austria and Hungary, in the Austrian town of Heiligenkreuz. The country's Interior Ministry says temporary border controls with Hungary will be in effect immediately

The Merkel dream is unravelling: the relentless flow of migrants has overwhelmed the EU mainland. On Sunday afternoon, Germany temporarily shut its borders with Austria, later introducing tougher vetting of migrants

‘It has got about . . . that you are successful [in claiming asylum] if you pretend to be Syrian.’

Along the well-trodden route from Turkey across the Aegean Sea to Greece, Macedonia to Serbia, into Hungary, Austria and, finally, Germany, there are rising fears that thousands of migrants are blagging their way into Europe as Syrians.

The situation is a huge embarrassment for Mrs Merkel, who wants to force migrant quotas on each EU country, including the UK.

This is rejected as ‘unacceptable’ by Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

In Britain, David Cameron has promised to take 20,000 directly from refugee camps in Syria and neighbouring countries. On Monday he visited a camp in Lebanon to highlight this strategy, intended to stop trafficking gangs from exploiting migrants.

But he was warned by a Syrian minister that two in every 100 people in the camps are ISIS jihadists trying to slip into Europe undetected.

A child eats a meal close to his tent at the border crossing point in Nickelsdorf, Austria. Migrants arrive at the temporary shelter after crossing the border from Hungary

David Cameron was warned by a Syrian minister that two in every 100 people in the camps are ISIS jihadists trying to slip into Europe undetected

The proportion of genuine Syrians among the migrants drops further as they make their way northwards towards Europe and more pretenders join in

In Berlin, Mohammad and Ismail told me less than a third of migrants in Germany, or on their way there, are from Syria. When I questioned this astonishing claim, they insisted they were right, calling over three friends who had travelled with them, who all said the same.

Concerned about a misunderstanding, although their English is good, I drew a pie chart and asked them to mark on it the percentage of migrants arriving in Germany who are genuinely Syrian.

Mohammad, watched by the others, took my pen and clearly drew a line showing they really did mean 30 per cent. If these young men are right, it makes a laughing stock of Mrs Merkel’s grandiose open-door plan.

Ismail said: ‘In our reception centre there are many, including the three Sudanese girls, who pretend to be from our country. Yet these people have different hair, different faces and speak Arabic in a different accent to us.

‘We first realised back in Turkey, when we waited to get a boat to Lesbos in Greece, migrants from other Arab-speaking countries were claiming to be Syrian,’ he adds.

By the EU border into Hungary (pictured), there are Macedonians, Albanians and Bosnians posing as Syrians, too. The bogus Syrians have even been found on the journey memorising street maps of the Syrian capital Damascus to try to fool the German authorities about their nationality when they arrive

Despite being aware of the problem, governments are struggling to combat it, finding themselves simply unable to cope with the numbers

Eye-witnesses claim that less than a third of migrants who have already reached Germany, or are on their way there, are from Syria

‘The traffickers were selling them identity cards, either stolen from us Syrians, or faked, ready to show the Germans.’

Trade in these documents — produced by trafficking gangs in forgery factories — is booming.

In the Greek capital Athens, a dealer and people smuggler nicknamed ‘Abu Karem’ (it means generous one) sells Syrian and European passports from a cafe down an alleyway. Some, costing £150 each, are brand new, printed in Bulgaria, and are unlikely to pass muster.

We first realised back in Turkey, when we waited to get a boat to Lesbos in Greece, migrants from other Arab-speaking countries were claiming to be Syrian Ismail Gannom, Syrian refugee

Others, stolen from Syrian migrants, bear official registered numbers and sell for £2,000 or more, ready for their new owner to place a photo inside. Abu Karem’s sales pitch is that these will ‘guarantee’ entry into Austria and then Germany.

As Fabrice Leggeri, head of the European border agency Frontex, last week told French radio: ‘Trafficking in Syrian passports is an extremely lucrative trade for smugglers. People who use them mostly speak Arabic, they may come from Africa or the Middle East, but they have the profile of economic migrants, not refugees.’

He added: ‘A lot have fake Syrian papers because they know they’ll get asylum in the EU more easily.’

Just this week, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimated that only half of the 381,000 people who have landed this year in Italy and Greece — the two main entry points for migrants — are Syrian. Others come from all over the Middle East and Africa.

The proportion of genuine Syrians among the migrants drops further as they make their way northwards towards Europe and more pretenders join in.

By the EU border into Hungary, there are Macedonians, Albanians and Bosnians posing as Syrians, too. The bogus Syrians have even been found on the journey memorising street maps of the Syrian capital Damascus to try to fool the German authorities about their nationality when they arrive. Despite being aware of the problem, governments are struggling to combat it.

On Monday, Ivo Kotevski, of the Macedonia Interior Ministry, said: ‘There are so many people travelling through our country that we don’t have the capacity to investigate those with fake documents.

Migrants stand in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia, demanding they be allowed to cross the border

Miroslav Jovic, a Serbian border official, reports that Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Iraqis deliberately throw away their identity documents in fields or ditches so they can pretend to be Syrians

‘Of the 75,000 who have arrived so far, only 50 have asked for asylum here. They don’t want to stay, but to travel into the EU.’

In Serbia, almost 90 per cent of the 3,000 migrants entering their country from Macedonia each day claim to be Syrian, although most have no documents to prove it.

Miroslav Jovic, a Serbian border official, reports that Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Iraqis deliberately throw away their identity documents in fields or ditches so they can pretend to be Syrians.

In the Serbian capital Belgrade, a local newspaper last week interviewed a young man — Kamal Salah, from Damascus — who was among the hundreds of people waiting to get into neighbouring Hungary.

‘Everyone here says they are Syrian, even those who are obviously not,’ he said. ‘That is not good for us Syrians when we get to Germany, because there must be some limit to the number who get asylum.

‘They are getting away from poverty or want a better life. We are fleeing from war.’

In a further alarming twist, Islamic State has seized a cache of 3,800 blank Syrian passports, with registration numbers, from former Syrian government buildings in Raqqa, the city it now controls.

Migrants shout slogans and hold a placard reading: 'Thank You Serbia' as they gather at the closed border crossing between Serbia and Hungary

Hungary declared a state of emergency in two counties along its border with Serbia, after it used a boxcar fitted with razor wire to block a major entry point

Declaring the state of emergency paves the way for the Hungarian Parliament to allow the army to reinforce police along the border, as new measures to crackdown on refugees go into effect

A migrant is seen trying to pass a highway security fence near Horgos. The number of people leaving their homes in war torn countries such as Syria, marks the largest migration of people since World War II

There are fears these may be used to get ISIS jihadists into Europe pretending to be Syrian refugees.

The other day a dangerous ISIS terrorist, posing as an ‘asylum seeker’, was discovered at a refugee centre in Stuttgart, Germany. The 21-year-old Moroccan — wanted in Spain, where he is accused of recruiting terrorists for ISIS — was using a ‘fake identity’, thought to be Syrian.

And German customs authorities have intercepted packages posted from Bulgaria containing 10,000 fake and stolen Syrian passports, destined to be sold for £1,200 each.

As a smartly dressed German woman, passing by an overwhelmed asylum processing centre in Berlin, said to me pointedly: ‘It seems that everyone wants to be Syrian now.’

Whatever the truth of this, Europe is witnessing the biggest inward migration since World War II.

In the first six months of this year, 450,000 migrants registered with the German authorities.

There were 105,000 asylum applications in August, and 37,000 in the first week of this month. Germany says it expects these to reach a total of 800,000, or even more, by the end of 2015.

A migrant man demonstrates with police officers through the razor wire fence from the Serbian side of the Serbian-Hungarian border at the closed rail track crossing point in Roszke, Hungary

Other igrants try to find a new way to enter Hungary, near the town of Kanjiza. Thousands of migrants have funnelled their way across country to the small gap in the steel fence unopposed by the authorities

Migrant children play near the border fence in Hungary, where hundreds pressed themselves against a barrier erected by Hungarian police across the main highway linking Serbia and Hungary on Tuesday

And still they try to come. In the age of the internet, social media and mobile phone, Germany’s invitation to Syrians is common knowledge in tea houses across Africa and the Middle East, luring more migrants to set off. Visiting a Berlin asylum processing centre, where she was cheered by migrants, Mrs Merkel promised last week that Germany would give a ‘good future’ to everyone.

It is a far cry from five years ago, when she said a multi-cultural society in Germany had ‘utterly failed’. Now, she tells her citizens: ‘Being a country to which so many want to migrate should be a source of pride.’ The irony is that she’s unlikely to be understood by many migrants, even those who have been in Germany for some time.

Take Syrian Muslim Mohamad Dugmush, once a Damascus restaurant manager, who is struggling to speak German after arriving in February 2014.

Mr Dugmush, in his 40s, moved to Berlin when his asylum application was approved. In July this year, he brought in his wife Amani, their daughter and four young sons.

The family have been allocated a three-room apartment, near the coffee bar where I met Mohammad and his friends in Neukolln, where 40 per cent of residents are of non-German origin.

A migrant gives a child water as they wait on the Serbian side of the border with Hungary in Asotthalom. They've not been able to make it to Hungary after the government cracked down to confront the continent's worst refugee crisis in two decades

Army officials speak to migrants sitting on the ground after they were arrested by Hungarian police officers and soldiers for trying to illegally cross the border at Roszke, southern Hungary

Migrants sleep in a temporary holding centre on the Austrian border after Hungarian authorities closed the open railway track crossing

Mr Dugmush and his wife get more than £500 a month, plus free housing and extra benefits, for their five children. It is far more than he earned in Syria.

‘I live on a street with a German name, which is nicknamed locally as Arab Strasse,’ he told an American TV channel proudly last month. ‘When I go outside, and everyone speaks Arabic, I smile.

‘Near my house, I have a mosque. My wife is wearing a veil. When she goes out, nobody speaks badly to her because she is among Muslims. I feel thankful for Germany.’

As for young Syrian arrivals Mohammad and Ismail, they are already frustrated by the badly over-stretched German migration system. Two days had gone by and they had not been registered as asylum seekers, although a charity worker was — bizarrely — assigned to take them on a tour of the city.

Back at the Neukolln coffee bar, the two again complain that Germany’s generosity to Syrians is being exploited.

Ismail tells me: ‘Today the Berlin officials came to our centre and asked a Lebanese migrant, who was pretending to be Syrian from Aleppo, if he could name any street in that city. He ran off, he could not answer. He still plans to claim asylum.

‘We are now worried that these cheats will make the asylum queues longer for us. If they behave badly, it will tarnish the image of real Syrians needing help here.’

Outside their reception centre, the balloons put up by the welcoming party hang limply from the lamp-posts. Word has come that Saudi Arabia is offering to finance the building of 200 mosques in Germany to cater for the new generations of Muslims.