Refugees Are Falling Ill After Foraging for Poisonous Mushrooms

Recent media coverage surrounding the influx of refugees to Europe has focused on the journeys made by individual migrants. As we read about escapes from war-torn countries, loved ones left behind, and weeks of perilous travel, few would consider that the real danger could actually be awaiting refugees at their chosen destinations. Least of all in the form of a seemingly innocuous foodstuff.

Tragically, for some migrants, this has been the case.

Toxicologists in Germany are linking 40 new cases of fungi poisoning last month, including one fatality, to recently arrived refugees mistaking poisonous German mushrooms for the harmless varieties foraged in their home countries.

As the Guardian reports, Siegmar Berndt, head toxicologist of the German Mycological Society has stated that poisonings are at an all-time high, telling the newspaper: "In my 70-year lifespan there have never been so many mushroom poisonings as there have been so far this year."

Most reported cases of mushroom poisoning in Germany are linked to the Amanita phalloides or "death cap" mushroom, a fungus that leads to rapid liver and kidney malfunction hours after consumption. Due to the deadly amatoxin they contain, even half a mushroom can prove fatal.

Most of the victims of mushroom poisoning are from Syria, with Berndt suggesting that in addition to families exploring woodland close to refugee shelters to find food, young migrant men with little else to do may "go for a walk in the woods, pick the mushrooms, and consume them after frying them."

So far, 30 poisonings have been recorded in Hannover and ten in Münster, including a Syrian teenager who died from a collapsed liver after a doctors were unable to find a suitable donor.

Experts believe that Syrian refugees are mistaking German death caps for the harmless but similar-looking Amanita mushroom, which grows in the Mediterranean.

"It's tragic, particularly when you consider the journeys they've already endured to get here," added Berndt.

As Germany is currently taking more refugees than any other European country, Hannover Medical School has released a poster to warn of the dangers of mushroom foraging.

Translated into eight languages and planned for distribution to refugee centres across Germany, the poster warns: "A mushroom you regard from your homeland as a delicious edible mushroom could be deadly here although they look similar."

It seems refugees may need to add "mushrooms" to their already extensive list of potentially deadly worries.