Germany’s Chancellor Scholz returns to Germany on Tuesday after a three-day trip through Central Asia. Among the deals he signed in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were ones relating to migration. The media speculated this was all about making sure that Afghan criminals could be sent back via a third country.
A flight has taken off from an airport in eastern Germany deporting individuals to Afghanistan. It is the first deportation of Afghans since the Taliban took power in Kabul in 2021.
A former Afghan prosecutor told DW that his visa application for Germany has been turned down. The decision, he says, has prolonged his stay in Pakistan and exposed his life to further risks.
Taekwondo athlete Marzieh Hamidi found refuge in France following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. She says the Taliban and the severe restrictions they have imposed on Afghan women is what brought out her fighting instinct.
Although they were born in Pakistan to Afghan families, many girls could be deported to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where they would not be allowed to attend school and would not enjoy equal rights.
Hila is an Afghan teenager currently living in Poland. While trying to cross a fence on the Polish-Belarusian border to reach family in Germany, she fell and sustained injuries necessitating three months in hospital. The accident has left lasting damage. Her family broke off contact, and Hila now resides in a Polish orphanage. She told InfoMigrants her story.
Afghan migrants were forced to leave their homes in Pakistan at short notice and return to Taliban-run Afghanistan. DW spoke to several of them at a refugee camp just across the border.
More than two years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, many Afghans still hoping to find a way to apply for asylum in Europe and beyond are leading increasingly precarious lives in neighboring countries. While those in Tajikistan face abject poverty, Afghans in Pakistan are now facing a major deportation campaign.
Germany says it has taken in more vulnerable people from Afghanistan than any other EU state since the Taliban takeover two years ago. However, thousands more continue to suffer as they remain trapped in the country.
In late March, the German government temporarily halted the Federal Reception Program for Afghans threatened with violence following reports of irregularities. Now the program has officially resumed as of this week.
In August 2021, when the US hurriedly pulled out of Afghanistan, it organised an airlift to evacuate those who had worked with NATO forces and found themselves threatened by the Taliban. These evacuations became chaotic and not everyone made it out.
The refugee charity Pro Asyl has called on the German government to change its admission program for Afghans in need of protection. It criticized the fact that not a single person has been admitted to Germany through the program's channels since its inception last fall.