Between a mass of sexual assault attacks on New Year's Eve in which several recently migrated asylum seekers were involved, to a growing number of Islamophobic attacks following last year's Daesh-claimed Paris attacks, the atmosphere surrounding refugees in Europe is not great for anyone.
But things appear to be getting worse this week in the northern English town of Middlesbrough, where the red doors of apartments in one refugee-dense neighborhood have become giant targets for xenophonic attacks.
An investigation by the Times of London revealed disturbing assaults on the houses in recent weeks, with residents telling the newspaper they'd had rocks thrown through their windows, excrement and eggs smeared on their doors and expletives yelled at them from passersby.
So did the property owners purposefully mark the doors?
According to a spokesperson for outsourcing giant and refugee housing contract-holder G4S, whose subcontractor property firm Jomast owns the Middlebrough complexes, "there is no policy to house asylum seekers behind red doors."
But the Times investigation suggested otherwise—out of 66 houses with red doors visited in the area, reporters found 62 of them were homes of asylum seekers from 22 different nationalities. And while the company conceded that the majority of refugee houses have red doors, their claim that it's unintentional is being challenged by resident accounts.
One man from Iran told the Times he and his roommate, another asylum seeker from Afghanistan, painted the door white after a number of attacks.
But shortly after, a Jomast employee came to the home and repainted the door red, apparently saying the while color was against company policy.
