In the latest, and most bizarre yet, twist in Europe's refugee crisis at least seven hundred of the roughly 4,000 asylum-seekers who had initially been accomodated by the German state of Lower Saxony have "mysteriously disappeared" according to a survey in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ).

Because many of the refugees hadn't been registered yet, Germany's The Local reports, nothing is known about who they are or where they might have gone; this has left the local authorities in the uncomfortable position of being completely clueless about who and where they can currently be found.

In one refugee centre in Lingen, the local member of parliament turned up for a visit on Saturday to find that over half of the 212 refugees brought to the centre had already left.

Timo Frers, spokesman for the town of Delmenhorst, said that the refugees don't know where they are taken after they arrive in Bavaria. "Most of the time they don't know where they are. We recently put up a map of Germany so they can orientate themselves," Frers told the Local.

According to Sputnik, some have speculated that the immigrants departed from the mostly rural province to either reunite with their relatives or to look for more attractive places to stay elsewhere in Germany or even abroad, according to the Local. Others point to failures to provide adequate housing for refugees.