The German government has relocated tens of thousands of Afghans to Pakistan with the prospect of entry to Germany. While some are still waiting in Islamabad, many have already arrived in the Federal Republic.
In the framework of various admission programs, the federal government has issued around 35,500 Afghan visas for humanitarian reasons since August 2021 and brought the individuals to Germany by scheduled or charter flights. These individuals were then able to settle legally in Germany. In addition, around 360,000 people have entered the country illegally since the refugee crisis began in 2014 and have subsequently filed for asylum. The rate of temporary recognition of refugees was 93 percent in the last year. Even in cases of rejected asylum applications, deportation is usually not carried out, as there are “concrete dangers” in Afghanistan.
Recently, attacks with allegedly Islamist motivations have repeatedly caused outrage, such as in Aschaffenburg or Munich.
Following this, the federal government cancelled the entry of Afghan citizens for the time being. The charter flights scheduled for February 11 and 18 were cancelled, according to a report by the Welt, which has sparked criticism among refugee activists. The Foreign Office, however, claimed that the cancellation was not due to the attacks, but rather due to “logistical reasons.”
In the last few days, the debate has intensified about why no flights in the opposite direction are being organized – to deport Afghan individuals, whose asylum application has been rejected and who pose a danger to public security in Germany, back to Kabul. This demand has been made, for example, by CDU representatives, such as Hesse’s Minister President Boris Rhein, who said it was incomprehensible that no further deportation flights to Afghanistan had been organized since the August 2024 flight with 24 Afghans on board.
The responsible Federal Ministry of the Interior refused to comment on the state of talks with the Taliban. Compared to the previous year, the criteria for the deportation of Afghans to Kabul are said to have been further tightened. Hesse, for example, had reported more than 100 Afghans as “deportable” to the federal government in the previous year, whereas only 13 were reported in the latest count. The reasons for this were not given by the Hesse Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of the Interior generally did not answer such detailed questions.
Following the Munich attack, not only has the pressure for further deportations increased, but also the efforts to prevent the planned entry of Afghans. This is evident from a paper of the Arbeitsstab Bundesaufnahmeprogramm of the Foreign Office, which deals with the situation of Afghan citizens in Pakistan.
The GIZ had relocated tens of thousands of Afghans to Pakistan with the prospect of entry to Germany on behalf of the federal government since 2021. In Pakistan, German officials then conducted a “security check” and checked the papers of the individuals seeking entry. At present, the public prosecutor’s offices in Cottbus and Berlin are investigating whether there were any violations in the process. Specifically, it is suspected that officials of the Foreign Office instructed German diplomats in Islamabad to issue visas to Afghans who presented forged documents (RT DE reported).
Furthermore, there is a suspicion that dangerous Afghans not only entered Germany illegally, but even arrived by a charter flight paid for by the government. The public prosecutor’s office has not yet answered questions about this.
Currently, around 3,000 Afghans are still in Pakistan, who are hoping for a charter flight to Germany. The document dated February 11 says that the Pakistani government has informed that Afghans in the German admission program but without a valid visa for Pakistan must leave the country by March 31, 2025, which will hardly be possible in the next week. The paper also reveals that Berlin is now trying to support Afghans in extending their visas for Pakistan and has established a “notfallkette” (emergency chain).
After the cancellation of the flights in this and the previous week, however, movement has again been seen in the matter. The next flight from Islamabad to Germany is said to be already booked – for the week after the Bundestag elections.