A German mayoral candidate active in helping refugees was seriously wounded on Saturday in what police described as a stabbing with a “racist, political” motive, heaping further pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over the migrant crisis.

The German leader expressed her “shock” over the attack in the western city of Cologne which left mayoral hopeful Henriette Reker with serious neck wounds.

The stabbing comes as Merkel prepares to travel to Istanbul on Sunday for talks on the crisis with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has heaped scorn on Europe‘s efforts to deal with the problem so far.

She has pushed for a fairer distribution of people across the European Union, but the crisis has sorely tested ties between member states and put unprecedented strain on the right to free movement that is at the core of the 28-nation bloc’s values.

Slovenia said Saturday it was drafting in the army to help police cope with an expected influx of thousands of migrants arriving after Hungary shut its border with Croatia overnight in its latest hardline move to stop the flow of people.

More than 630,000 people fleeing war and misery in the Middle East and Africa have landed on Europe‘s shores this year, with many making risky sea crossings from Turkey to Greece.

Highlighting the human cost of the crisis, another 12 people drowned on Saturday when their wooden boat sank off the Turkish coast as they were trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos, Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported.

Most of the refugees and migrants are trying to get to Germany, Europe‘s economic powerhouse, which has said it expects up to one million asylum seekers this year after saying it would open its doors to Syrian refugees.

Merkel’s policy has led to growing tensions in Germany, triggering a backlash from her conservative allies and spawning a growing number of increasingly vocal far-right protests.

Reker, an independent close to Merkel‘s ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) responsible for refugee issues in Cologne, was stabbed in the neck at a party information stand in the city.

Four other people were also injured, one of them seriously, with regional police chief Wolfgang Albers saying it was a “political act”.

The attacker was arrested at the scene and told police he had “a racist motivation for committing this act,” Cologne police official Norbert Wagner said at a news conference.  (AFP)