BERLIN: A new group of Afghans who had been promised refuge in Germany arrived on Wednesday, the latest to escape months of limbo in Pakistan.
An interior ministry spokesman said that 28 Afghans landed at Hanover airport in the early afternoon.
The Afghans were accepted under a refugee scheme set up by the previous German government, which was frozen after conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz took office in May.
Since then, around 2,000 Afghans have been stuck in Pakistan, where they have been threatened with deportation back to Afghanistan. Some of those affected have mounted successful legal challenges against the German government, forcing the authorities to allow them entry.
A first group of 47 Afghans who won their cases arrived in Germany earlier this month, and those who came on Wednesday had also been successful in the courts.
According to the Airbridge Kabul initiative, set up to help those affected, the latest group — five men, 10 women, and 13 children — arrived on a commercial flight from Islamabad.
However, around 250 Afghans who had been waiting to go to Germany have been deported from Pakistan in recent weeks. On Wednesday, a foreign ministry spokesman said that none of them has yet been able to return to Pakistan.
The German scheme was aimed at Afghans who had worked with German forces in Afghanistan or who were deemed at particular risk from the Taliban, for example, journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists.
Since Merz’s conservative-led coalition government took power in May, it has put the process on ice as part of a wider push to toughen immigration policy.
Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2025