Halle (dpa/sa) - The foreign population in Saxony-Anhalt grew by 26 percent in the first eight months of this year. At the end of August, almost 154,600 people with origins other than Germany lived in Saxony-Anhalt and thus around 31,900 more than at the beginning of the year, as the State Statistical Office announced on Monday in Halle. According to this, one in six foreigners had Syrian or Ukrainian citizenship, one in 13 had Polish and one in 16 had Romanian citizenship.

A total of around 2.18 million people live in Saxony-Anhalt. Basically, the population is shrinking because more people are dying than are being born. Most recently, however, the migration gain had more than offset the deficit.