BERLIN – German authorities registered at least 950 attacks on Muslims and their mosques in 2017, according to reports released by the Interior Ministry, the Neue Osnabrueckner Zeitung reported on Saturday.

Warning against the huge increase in hate attacks targeting the religious minority, the ministry said 33 people were injured in the attacks, of which 60 were directed against mosques, some involving pig’s blood, Reuters reported.

The report did not include a comparison of hate attacks number in previous years as the ministry only began separately collecting data about anti-Islamic attacks in 2017.

Speaking to the paper, Aiman Mazyek, who heads the Central Council of Muslims, said the number of attacks on Muslims and Muslim facilities was likely much higher given that many authorities were not yet monitoring anti-Islamic incidents. Moreover, many victims often failed to make police reports.

Germany has welcomed more than 1 million refugees since 2015.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won almost 13 percent of the votes in the September 2017 election and entered the parliament, raising fears over the prevalence of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments in Germany society.

The far-right party has surpassed the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) for the first time in a national poll to become the second-strongest party, an Insa survey for the mass-circulation daily Bild showed last month.