A community in southwest Germany has elected a Syrian refugee as mayor.
Ryyan Alshebl, 29, arrived in the nation in 2015 after escaping the war in his native country. He made Baden-Wurttemberg his home and has been employed there for seven years in the town hall of Althengstett.
He received 55.4 percent of the vote on Sunday in the mayoral election in the village of Ostelsheim while running as an independent and running on a platform of expanding access to online services.
His victory was hailed as "sensational," and he lauded the community for "setting an example for open-mindedness and cosmopolitanism for the entire of Germany."
He is the first Syrian refugee to have applied for asylum in Germany between 2015 and 2016 — of whom there are at least 430,000 — known to have been elected to office. He is also among just 1.2 percent of Germany’s elected mayors to be from a migrant background, as opposed to 27 percent of the country’s total population, according to Mediendienst Integration.
Ryyan Alshebl, 29, arrived in the nation in 2015 after escaping the war in his native country. He made Baden-Wurttemberg his home and has been employed there for seven years in the town hall of Althengstett.
He received 55.4 percent of the vote on Sunday in the mayoral election in the village of Ostelsheim while running as an independent and running on a platform of expanding access to online services.
His victory was hailed as "sensational," and he lauded the community for "setting an example for open-mindedness and cosmopolitanism for the entire of Germany."
He is the first Syrian refugee to have applied for asylum in Germany between 2015 and 2016 — of whom there are at least 430,000 — known to have been elected to office. He is also among just 1.2 percent of Germany’s elected mayors to be from a migrant background, as opposed to 27 percent of the country’s total population, according to Mediendienst Integration.
