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