BERLIN: German foreign ministry spokesman Josef Hinterseher has said more than 200 Afg­hans waiting to be offered sanctuary in Germany had been deported by Pakis­t­­an to their Taliban-run home country in re­cent days and the German government was urging Isla­m­­abad to allow them back.

The deportees are part of a group previously offered refuge in Germany but now caught between Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s tougher immigration policy and a wave of expulsions from Pakistan.

Hinterseher told reporters that Pakistani police re­­cently arrested “around 450” Afghans who were pre­viously accepted under the German scheme for peo­ple at risk from the Taliban. Of those, “211 peo­ple, according to our current information, have been deported to Afgha­nistan,” he added.

Another “245 people were allowed to leave camps” in Pakistan where they had been gathered prior to their scheduled deportation, he said.

“We are continuing to talk to Pakistan to facilitate the return of those who have already been deported.”

Last week, two German rights groups launched legal proceedings against two German ministers, accusing them of “abandonment and failure to render assistance” to those hoping for German visas under the scheme.

Germany set up the programme under former chancellor Olaf Scholz in the wake of the Taliban’s 2021 takeover, to help Afghans who had worked with German institutions and their families.

It also included people deemed particularly threatened by the Taliban, including journalists and human rights activists.

However, the program­­me has been put on hold as part of a stricter immigration policy brought in un­­der Merz, who took office in May, leaving some 2,000 Afghans stranded in Pakistan waiting for German visas.

A German interior ministry spokesman said that an individual review, potentially followed by security screening, was underway for each person in the admission programme.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2025